UPDATE: The White House has stated that the undercover "Cuban Twitter" network was not a covert operation but a "development program," The Associated Press reported.
The Obama administration built a social network known as "Cuban Twitter" to undermine the communist government, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, federal official Joe McSpedon and a team of contractors completed the social media project in 2010, hoping to reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans.
The network, which discontinued use in 2012, was known as "ZunZuneo," which is slang for a Cuban hummingbird's tweet, according to information found in more than 1,000 pages of documents obtained by the AP. The bare-bones "Cuban Twitter" worked around the communist government's stranglehold on information by using cellphone text messaging.
The project started with "non-controversial content," including messages on sports, music and weather, but was intended to eventually stir up unrest through political content to encourage mass gatherings.
The 40,000 subscribers that used ZunZuneo at its peak to spread news and opinions never realized the network was funded by the American government, which had set up an intricate system of front companies and a Cayman Islands bank account to stay undercover.
"There will be absolutely no mention of United States government involvement," said a 2010 memo from Mobile Accord, one of the project's contractors, the AP reported. "This is absolutely crucial for the long-term success of the service and to ensure the success of the Mission."
Officials have declined to comment on the project.
"USAID is a development agency, not an intelligence agency, and we work all over the world to help people exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms, and give them access to tools to improve their lives and connect with the outside world," USAID spokesman Matt Herrick told the AP.
The USAID is responsible for billions of dollars in humanitarian aid.
Whether or not the Cuban Twitter project was legal is in question. Under U.S. law, federal agencies need authorization from the president to take covert action.
"On the face of it there are several aspects about this that are troubling," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and chairman of the Appropriations Committee's State Department and foreign operations subcommittee, told the AP.
"There is the risk to young, unsuspecting Cuban cellphone users who had no idea this was a U.S. government-funded activity."
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