The reopening of several websites censored by Caracas serves as a reminder that on the island it is necessary to overcome blockades to access the independent media press.
14ymedio, Havana, Yoani Sánchez, September 17, 2026 / Some news stories, when read from Cuba, take on a different meaning. This Thursday, when I learned that Venezuela had begun unblocking digital sites censored for years, I inevitably thought of a mobile phone screen in Havana trying to open the newspaper 14ymedio. The scroll wheel spins, minutes pass, and finally nothing appears. We’ve been like this for twelve years, since that 21st of May 2014, when this newspaper was born.
In Venezuela, the telecommunications regulator began lifting restrictions on several websites. The organization VE Sin Filtro had counted approximately 200 blocked domains as of yesterday and confirmed that at least nine media outlets had regained access, including Efecto Cocuyo, El Pitazo, Runrun.es, and Crónica Uno. The organization described the measure, if it continues, as one of the first significant setbacks in Venezuelan digital censorship, although it warned that numerous sites remain restricted.
The news evokes a mixture of joy and envy in me from the island. I think of Luz Mely Reyes and her colleagues at Efecto Cocuyo, obliged for years to find alternative ways to reach their readers. Just last month, Reyes denounced the lack of transparency in the political dialogue between the government and part of the opposition, a dialogue to which journalists weren’t even allowed access to cover the initial greetings. This contradiction helps put today’s easing of restrictions into perspective: opening a few pages doesn’t mean that the restrictions on the press have disappeared.
How many readers have we lost because clicking a link leads to a page that won’t load? How many gave up after several attempts to access our site?
From Cuba we know all too well about this. The censorship against 14ymedio has had a cost that’s difficult to calculate. How many readers have we lost because clicking a link leads to a page that won’t load? How many gave up after several attempts to access our site? How many Cubans only learned of our existence after emigrating and being able to browse the web without restrictions?
But every wall forces you to find a crack. Over these twelve years, we’ve learned to distribute content through social media, newsletters, messaging apps, emails, and any other means that allows us to circumvent the barrier. Censorship deprived us of a potential audience, but it also forced us to become more creative.
Paradoxically, while the Cuban regime tried to keep independent media out of sight of the the national audience, its own press system was weakening. Official newsrooms have lost journalists to the mass exodus; there is a lack of transportation, fuel, and resources to send reporters to cover events, and reality has ultimately moved too quickly for the old mechanism of waiting for instructions before reporting it.
Independent media outlets have grown in this space, but so have Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, and other platforms where much of the information consumed by Cubans now circulates. A blackout, a protest, or an accident might be reported first by a shaky video from a neighbor rather than a news item in the official press. If there were a mass unblocking of independent websites, it is expected that they would displace the antiquated newspapers controlled by the Communist Party.
However, we agree not to confuse a half-open door with a house one can freely enter or leave. Venezuela maintains important information restrictions, and VE Sin Filtro is demanding that the lifting of these restrictions also extend to other media outlets, civil organizations, communication platforms, and VPN tools. Even the opposition participating in the dialogue with Delcy Rodríguez’s interim government has called for a complete and permanent unblocking of these resources.
Meanwhile, the Castro regime is taking note of what is happening in its former ally. Because controlling a country through a monopoly on information is one thing, but dealing with a free press is quite another.
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