While thousands of Cubans put themselves at great personal risk to protest against the repressive communist government on Sunday and the hashtag #SOSCuba was trending, Twitter scrubbed any mention of the dictatorial regime, focusing instead on COVID-19.
“People are helping to spread awareness on the impact of COVID-19 in Cuba as cases hit an all-time high in the country,” the social media platform commented on the hashtag.
This is ridiculous from @Twitter.
Yes, COVID cases are hitting an all time high on the island, but we are demanding an end to the communist dictatorship. #SOSCuba pic.twitter.com/oaRGPhmVcv
— Giancarlo Sopo (@GiancarloSopo) July 11, 2021
Senator Marco Rubio denounced Twitter, writing, “Surreal but not surprising. @Twitter says this is all about COVID ‘awareness’ in #Cuba. Ignores this is really about how socialism is a disaster & always leads to tyranny, despair and suffering.”
surreal but not surprising @twitter says this all about COVID “awareness” in #Cuba
Ignores this is really about how socialism is a disaster & always leads to tyranny, despair & suffering pic.twitter.com/T6DLOgFoAc
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 11, 2021
There were other notable political figures who did not mince words about the actual motivation for the protesters, including Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, who wrote, “Florida supports the people of Cuba as they take to the streets against the tyrannical regime in Havana. The Cuban dictatorship has repressed the people of Cuba for decades & is now trying to silence those who have the courage to speak out against its disastrous policies #SOSCuba.”
Florida supports the people of Cuba as they take to the streets against the tyrannical regime in Havana. The Cuban dictatorship has repressed the people of Cuba for decades & is now trying to silence those who have the courage to speak out against its disastrous policies#SOSCuba pic.twitter.com/H71EYoKdUZ
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) July 11, 2021
As The Daily Wire reported, “Cubans took to the street in rarely seen demonstrations to protest the impoverished conditions of the island, their lack of freedom under the far-left Marxist regime, and did so while chanting ‘Liberty’ and ‘Freedom’ and waving an American flag.”
The Washington Post reported:
José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, said his group had received reports that at least 20 people had been arrested. He added that the organization had received reports of violence being used by Cuban forces, a claim echoed by social media users sharing videos of wounded protesters.
“This is pretty massive,” Vivanco said. “My sense is that this is a combination of social unrest based on a lack of freedoms, and covid, and economic conditions. The lack of access to electricity. The blackouts. … People are screaming for freedom.”
“As demonstrators sought to broadcast the protest live with their cellphones through social media, Cuba’s authorities cut internet service on multiple occasions on Sunday,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Kentik, a U.S.-based network monitoring company, reported countrywide internet outages.”
The leftist site Vox reported in 2018 of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: “Twitter is so liberal, in fact, that conservative employees ‘don’t feel safe to express their opinions’ within the company, Dorsey told NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen in a new interview published today on Recode Media.”
Dorsey stated, “We have a lot of conservative-leaning folks in the company as well, and to be honest, they don’t feel safe to express their opinions at the company. They do feel silenced by just the general swirl of what they perceive to be the broader percentage of leanings within the company, and I don’t think that’s fair or right.”
Dorsey added, “I think it’s more and more important to at least clarify what our own bias leans towards, and just express it. I’d rather know what someone biases to rather than try to interpret through their actions.”