Anonymity and Cowardice, Cuban State Security Profiles on the Internet

When they fail to identify themselves they are labeled as lily-livered, especially because they fling mud on people using their names, surnames, faces. (Piqsels)

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14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 26 June 2020 — They can take the name of character in a soap opera, or that of any neighbor’s child, or use a warlike epithet, but the anonymous internet profiles of Cuban State Security agents always share a common denominator: cowardice. Hidden behind a pseudonym they carry out the work of the official machinery in the smear campaigns against the critics, but end up muddying their own manufactured character more than their victims.

I remember one of these characters from a few years ago — whose name I can’t remember — who was created to attack the alternative blogosphere and dissidents. They had an ephemeral life, because they were deactivated soon after, probably by the same people who had attempted to place them on the networks as a “voice of young Cubans.” It was disguise, the mask behind which an entire political police team was probably hiding, and was used with the same impunity as the hangman’s hood.

That character, who behaved with the pretense of being able to sink reputations and intimidate the bravest, ended up being discarded. Especially because little by little, and despite the initial aftertaste that can arise in a certain audience that follows these gossip-focused profiles, the fact that they are not real people and cannot show their faces ends up taking a toll. When they fail to identify themselves they are labeled as lily-livered, especially because they fling mud on people using their names, surnames, faces and even their identity card numbers.

Now, we are witnessing a new installment of these deplorables, with the addition that even the official press alludes to them from time to time, journalists close to the Government use them as sources, and more than one public face of culture comes out to defend them. It is still contradictory that an enthroned power, which controls Parliament, dictates laws and manages the Army, ends up defending itself by appealing to a secret entity. That is evidence only of their fear.

The current anonymous pro-government profiles that promote the destruction of the reputation of a deceased young man – calling him a criminal – as well as the gossip about the private life of an opponent, will pass in a few years and they will not even be remembered, most likely their accounts in social networks will be deleted for the convenience of those that created them. They have the ephemeral life of an unknown soldier sent to die on the front line, of whom not a single tombstone with their name will remain.

However, the flesh and blood beings who took advantage of the stories spread by these masked entities, those who used their hoaxes to judge others, spread their lies and used their gossip to socially stigmatize citizens… those will remain and they will have to answer to their conscience, that little voice that hammers everyone in the head and that should have warned them before: it is not a good idea to rely on hooded anonymity or cowardice to follow others under a pseudonym.

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