False news reports have spread fast following unprecedented protests in Cuba. Among them: former President Raul Castro had fled to ally Venezuela, protesters had kidnapped a provincial Communist Party chief and Caracas was sending in troops.
The Cuban government said they were spread by counter-revolutionaries, while critics of the government said they may have come from the authorities themselves. Neither provided evidence for their claims and the Reuters news agency was unable to ascertain the origins of the stories.
The government said the stories, which spread on Sunday on social media and messaging apps, were part of a broader US-backed attempt by counter-revolutionaries to destabilise the country.
“What calumnies, what lies,” said President Miguel Diaz-Canel late on Wednesday, exposing some of the fake news stories on a televised roundtable. “The way they are using social media is poisonous and alienating.”
“It is an expression of media terrorism,” he said.
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