Mr. President,
We agree with the Special Rapporteur that the digital era has transformed the exercise of freedom of expression.
The remarkable advances in the digital field and in artificial intelligence are being hijacked. A few transnational consortia, owners of the main technological platforms, impose their operating systems and applications and control, through their algorithms, the content we see, read, and hear.
Digital data, one of today’s most valuable resources, is being used to influence human behaviour without ethical limits.
A new global order for information and communications is urgently needed.
The threat of military aggression and the criminal economic blockade imposed by the United States against our country are combined with a defamatory media and communications campaign of disinformation that projects a false image of the Cuban reality, with daily incitements to violence and sedition.
This media crusade, carried out mainly from platforms financed and based in United States territory, is incompatible with the freedom of expression and the right to information that they claim to uphold.
The exercise of freedom of opinion and expression, as established in international law, does not justify the violation of other individual or collective rights. In this context, we reiterate our condemnation of hate speech and acts that promote violence and intolerance.
The constant censorship of Cuban public media accounts and users on social networks, particularly those who criticize the campaigns against our country, violates the right to free expression of Cubans and demonstrates the subordination of major platforms to the arbitrariness of the United States Government.
Cuba will continue to advocate for responsible conduct by all actors in the management of information and for a democratic and participatory model of internet governance.
Thank you.