A group of early adopters at CENIAI, Havana, 1996. Photo courtesy of Larry Press.

When it comes to the Internet, Cuba is routinely compared to countries like China, Iran, and Vietnam, where broad-reaching Internet censorship regimes exist. The degree to which Internet use is controlled by the Cuban government is great. But unlike these and many other countries, there is no evidence that the Cuban government conducts systematic censorship of online content.

Similarly, there is no reliable data on how many people in Cuba actually use the Internet — regularly-cited statistics range from 2.9%-25%. And one could spend years reading western media coverage of Cuba’s Internet and its embattled blogging community (as both of these authors have) and never figure out precisely how the Internet works there, how many people use it, and what kinds of restrictions they face in doing so. Like many other aspects of public life and experience on the island, Cuba’s digital culture is poorly understood by outsiders…

Read the whole explainer by me and Elaine on Medium.