update their phone software (and often does this for them free of charge).

La Gente (The People). La gente are the people who engage with this network on a massive scale and across all socioeconomic strata. When individuals wish to acquire content from EP, they purchase it from a paquetero at a store, get it delivered to their home, or get it from a friend. While there is a desire for entertainment, there are many other needs and motivations that drive engagement with this network. EP acts as more of an information medium than purely an entertainment service.

Much of the motivation to engage with EP comes from the fact that it is the main and often only source of information that comes from the W W W. EP contains downloaded Web pages from sites like Wikipedia, You Tube videos, Facebook posts from celebrities, and screenshots of Twitter feeds, to name a few. People also use EP to engage with Revolico, which is like a Cuban Craigslist. Each week, the most recent version of the entire Revolico website is included in EP; people rely on this information to buy and sell items, find jobs, and advertise businesses.

La gente not only consume content; they also create it. EP is viewed as an alternative to the state-owned press, allowing local journalists to turn to EP for publishing their content within Cuba, something that was previously not possible. We met with Maria Joaquina, a journalist and column writer for Vistar Magazine. This online magazine was designed for Cubans living outside of Cuba, since the majority of people inside the country do not have a way to access this content online. Thanks to EP, those in Cuba can now read the magazine, since the network has provided a new venue to distribute alternative journalism.

Because it contains one TB of content, people said that going through all the content each week could be overwhelming (even though many did not purchase the entire EP each week). For example, Javier occasionally purchases parts of EP himself, but he prefers to get curated sections from his friend, who sets aside content that she thinks Javier will like before dropping off her external hard drive at his apartment.

While relying on someone to choose
your content may appear limiting,
people often spoke positively regarding
that moderated aspect of EP, drawing
parallels to the W W W, like Alexis,
who told us: “EP is like the Internet.

The Internet is not a bad thing…. There are people who misuse it, but it’s not a bad thing … One good thing is that our Internet [EP] is filtered; you will not find negative content. Like pornography. Bad things. Because the people in charge of distributing EP, they select what to put.”

 

A CUBAN INTERNET

The examples are illustrative of our larger set of findings, demonstrating how the work of human actors plays a central role in sustaining and growing EP, offering a unique version of the Internet where it would other wise not exist.

Specifically, the human infrastructure of this network mobilizes a personalized and negotiated kind of Internet for its consumers.

Our participants described how they

T
customized EP for others (like Ricardo,
who charges his customers differently)
and how they preferred to engage with
EP so it was customized for them (like
Javier, whose friend puts together a
version of EP that will suit his tastes).
As systems increasingly move toward
automation, this study illuminates
aspects (such as personalization)
that are not always replaceable by
technology. This visibility is just as
important in places where Internet
access is unconstrained, such as in the
case of Amazon Mechanical Turkers
and Gig Workers, whose contributions
are frequently rendered invisible.
Through this enhanced visibility, we
see that actors of EP not only engage
with the material, tangible elements of
the network, but are also in constant
negotiations with personal preferences
and legal boundaries. These negotiations
The outside of an EP store in Havana.