Wikipedia a la Cubana

In December 2008 we mentioned a “clear case of mistaken Internet priorities by the Cuban government” when officials “heavily promoted” a Spanish-based company running an online shopping site on the island during the holiday season. Few Cubans can afford a personal computer while roughly one in ten Cubans has access to the Internet. Furthermore, the Cuban government had had a very fractured relationship with the island’s bloggers that has included harassment and police pressure.

Therefore, it’s seems out of place that Cuba’s government has launched its own version of Wikipedia. Ecured.cu was launched on Tuesday with the aim of gathering and spreading " knowledge with a non-profit, pro-democracy aim from a decolonizing point of view." According to BBC News, the site’s entry on the U.S. describes it as an "empire of our time, which has historically taken by force territory and natural resources from other nations, to put at the service of its businesses and monopolies".

The site has nearly 20,000 entries in total on items like Fidel Castro and U.S.-Cuba relations but supposedly has nothing on the possible reforms to the country’s economic model.

Ecured did encounter some difficulties during its initial run and briefly crashed earlier today.

Image- The Telegraph
Online Sources- The Telegraph, The Latin Americanist, BBC News