Why The U.S. Government's Fake 'Cuban Twitter' Service Failed

Why The U.S. Government's Fake 'Cuban Twitter' Service Failed
4/03/2014 @ 5:46PM

Updated below with statements from USAID and one of its contractors

It's almost common these days for state-run parties to subvert
grassroots movements. During the heyday of Anonymous, a hacktivist
community born on 4chan and organized by hackers in chat rooms, federal
authorities tried to usurp the collective with a honeypot-style movement
called AntiSec. Not long after, AntiSec lost steam and fell apart.

A more fundamental failure hit ZunZuneo, a social-change project in Cuba
that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) quietly
created in 2009. The so-called "Cuban Twitter" shut down three years
later when it failed to survive without state funding, and started
getting blocked by the Cuban government.

The fake service allowed Cubans to send texts freely and anonymously to
one another. USAID's goal, according to the Associated Press, which
cites government documents about the project, was to surreptitiously
incite "smart mobs," or spontaneous political rallies against Fidel
Castro's restrictive government.

U.S. officials have confirmed the government was behind the ZunZuneo
project, calling it a discreet form of humanitarian aid and denying it
was covert.

The aid agency's Office of Transition Initiative division kickstarted
the project after one of its sources obtained a database of half a
million Cuban cell phone numbers. With the help of contractors the
agency hid behind the guise of a hip, social-media service, then spammed
those phone number with with texts bearing news snippets or satirical
jokes. It relied on a complex network of spoof servers and front
companies to disguise ZunZuneo's origins in the United States.

This was secretive marketing for political purposes, an ill-fated
attempt to copy the organic wave of 2011 Arab Spring protests that
gathered momentum thanks to Twitter.

At first, it worked. ZunZuneo's early users were people like Saimi Reyes
Carmona, a Cuban journalism student quoted in the AP's story, who could
send free texts to thousands of followers under a nickname, free from
the prying eyes of the Cuban government. Carmona recalled thinking at
the time that ZunZuneo was "the coolest thing I've ever seen." She was
later stunned to learn about the service's origins.

ZunZuneo ultimately fell apart because it became too big, too fast. It
amassed 40,000 users but had no clear explanation for how it was paying
thousands of dollars in texting fees each month. Contractors reportedly
sent internal memos suggesting the service should cut financial ties
with USAID and continue promoting political change in Cuba — but the
ideas weren't sustainable. Even with tens of thousands of users,
targeted advertising simply wouldn't make enough money in a developing
nation like Cuba. By June 2012, ZunZuneo was offline.

Given how pervasive mobile messaging apps can be, governments around the
world have almost certainly flirted with ways they can co-opt them for
snooping or marketing, or create their own as USAID did. But the most
effective route may be to work, transparently, with popular services
that already exist.


In India, political parties have used messaging giant WhatsApp to send
text messages to hundreds of thousands of their constituents, with the
goal of reaching young, tech-savvy voters. Rather than pilfering a
database of phone numbers, they require party members to sign up to
their WhatsApp group voluntarily.

It's unclear if USAID has since tried repeating the fake, ZunZuneo
project in some other part of the world.

"It depends on the results of this mission," says J.J. Thompson, CEO of
security consultancy Rook Security. "If the core objective was fulfilled
then it is likely to be replicated."

Considering the failure of ZunZuneo, the answer may well be "no."

UPDATE: Mobile Accord, one of the contractors tasked with building
ZunZuneo for USAID, has released an official statement on the matter:

"We're a mobile services company who facilitates open communications to
power social good. We provided a platform for Cuban people to connect
with one another. The program ran its course and was defunded, but it
was well-loved by users and we're very proud of the network we built for
Cubans to share information about their daily lives."

The USAID has also released a statement, saying:

"…All of our work in Cuba, including this project, was reviewed in
detail in 2013 by the Government Accountability Office and found to be
consistent with U.S. law and appropriate under oversight controls…

The purpose of the Zunzuneo project was to create a platform for Cubans
to speak freely among themselves, period…"

Source: Why The U.S. Government's Fake 'Cuban Twitter' Service Failed -
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/04/03/why-the-u-s-governments-fake-cuban-twitter-service-failed/