Twitter has labeled the accounts of Cuba’s major media outlets as “state-affiliated,” prompting criticism from the ruling Communist Party.
The label was attached to accounts including Granma — the party’s official newspaper — Tribuna de La Haban, Juventud Rebelde, Agencia Cubana de Noticias, and Cubadebate.
Rogelio Polanco, head of the Communist Party’s ideology department, tweeted Monday that the move was “more evidence of the manipulation of algorithms to reduce the visibility of some media in relation to others.”
News portal Cubadebate said in an article Monday that the measure “censors and stigmatizes the country’s public media” and “affects the recipients and potential readers of labeled media tweets.”
“#Twitter pejoratively labels the media that do not support the empire’s discourse,” tweeted Cubadebate director Randy Alonso Falcon.
Twitter labels media accounts as state-affiliated when a government “exercises control over editorial content,” according to its website.
In Cuba’s socialist system, all media is state-owned.
Some independent media outlets are tolerated, but are considered illegal.
