Mike Ritland

and use them, we are told, to unilaterally create a social media website in Cuba at a time when Cuba had banned U.S. social media, considering Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and the like to be arms of U.S. statecraft.

and use them, we are told, to unilaterally create a social media website in Cuba at a time when Cuba had banned U.S. social media, considering Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and the like to be arms of U.S. statecraft.

and use them, we are told, to unilaterally create a social media website in Cuba at a time when Cuba had banned U.S. social media, considering Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and the like to be arms of U.S. statecraft.

The Obama administration was riding high at this moment from the Arab Spring and the Facebook revolutions and the Twitter revolutions that USAID and NED played such a critical role in. Funding money to these networks, training them, teaching them how to use Twitter hashtags, teaching them how to coordinate Facebook posts to tell people where to protest.

The Obama administration was riding high at this moment from the Arab Spring and the Facebook revolutions and the Twitter revolutions that USAID and NED played such a critical role in. Funding money to these networks, training them, teaching them how to use Twitter hashtags, teaching them how to coordinate Facebook posts to tell people where to protest.

The Obama administration was riding high at this moment from the Arab Spring and the Facebook revolutions and the Twitter revolutions that USAID and NED played such a critical role in. Funding money to these networks, training them, teaching them how to use Twitter hashtags, teaching them how to coordinate Facebook posts to tell people where to protest.

$1.2 billion pumped in by the State Department in Egypt during that time, for example. And so what USAID in their own internal documents showed is that they saw the success of the Arab Spring and they wanted to create a Cuban Spring. They wanted street protests, riots, what they called smart mobs in Cuba on the basis of U.S. social media that they could instrumentalize.

$1.2 billion pumped in by the State Department in Egypt during that time, for example. And so what USAID in their own internal documents showed is that they saw the success of the Arab Spring and they wanted to create a Cuban Spring. They wanted street protests, riots, what they called smart mobs in Cuba on the basis of U.S. social media that they could instrumentalize.

$1.2 billion pumped in by the State Department in Egypt during that time, for example. And so what USAID in their own internal documents showed is that they saw the success of the Arab Spring and they wanted to create a Cuban Spring. They wanted street protests, riots, what they called smart mobs in Cuba on the basis of U.S. social media that they could instrumentalize.

The problem was they didn't have the asset in the region. They couldn't get their social media in. So what they did is they used a Byzantine labyrinth of money laundering flows from these humanitarian aids earmarked for Pakistan – again, back to Pakistan – and used that to go through a subcontractor called Creative Associates International, who's a frequent USAID contractor for this dirty work.

The problem was they didn't have the asset in the region. They couldn't get their social media in. So what they did is they used a Byzantine labyrinth of money laundering flows from these humanitarian aids earmarked for Pakistan – again, back to Pakistan – and used that to go through a subcontractor called Creative Associates International, who's a frequent USAID contractor for this dirty work.

The problem was they didn't have the asset in the region. They couldn't get their social media in. So what they did is they used a Byzantine labyrinth of money laundering flows from these humanitarian aids earmarked for Pakistan – again, back to Pakistan – and used that to go through a subcontractor called Creative Associates International, who's a frequent USAID contractor for this dirty work.

They were involved in all sorts of other ones, but it's CAI, not CIA, Creative Associates International, who then basically contacted two Cuban businessmen to create an identical version of Twitter, but for Cubans. Zunzanillo is... for Hummingbird. It's basically even simulated the bird. It had the like button, the retweet button.

They were involved in all sorts of other ones, but it's CAI, not CIA, Creative Associates International, who then basically contacted two Cuban businessmen to create an identical version of Twitter, but for Cubans. Zunzanillo is... for Hummingbird. It's basically even simulated the bird. It had the like button, the retweet button.

They were involved in all sorts of other ones, but it's CAI, not CIA, Creative Associates International, who then basically contacted two Cuban businessmen to create an identical version of Twitter, but for Cubans. Zunzanillo is... for Hummingbird. It's basically even simulated the bird. It had the like button, the retweet button.

And USA Documents showed that their plan was to get about 100,000, recruit people onto this platform, in their own words, with algorithms and feeds and promotion of that this was the site to share sports, music, and hurricane updates. That's their direct phrase in their own internal documents.

And USA Documents showed that their plan was to get about 100,000, recruit people onto this platform, in their own words, with algorithms and feeds and promotion of that this was the site to share sports, music, and hurricane updates. That's their direct phrase in their own internal documents.

And USA Documents showed that their plan was to get about 100,000, recruit people onto this platform, in their own words, with algorithms and feeds and promotion of that this was the site to share sports, music, and hurricane updates. That's their direct phrase in their own internal documents.

but that once they had gotten a critical mass of users on the site, between like 60,000, 100,000, they would shift the algorithms, they would use the data that they hoovered up from Cubans signing up, taking note of their political proclivities, the network clusters they'd formed, in order to get them to take to the streets in a violent revolution protest against the Cuban government to form what they called smart mobs,

but that once they had gotten a critical mass of users on the site, between like 60,000, 100,000, they would shift the algorithms, they would use the data that they hoovered up from Cubans signing up, taking note of their political proclivities, the network clusters they'd formed, in order to get them to take to the streets in a violent revolution protest against the Cuban government to form what they called smart mobs,