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.