Online safety & content laws in Cuba (2026)

Félix Daniel Pérez Ruiz was sentenced to five years in prison for a Facebook post criticizing the government and calling for a public demonstration. The case exemplifies routine enforcement of Cuba's layered online-speech laws against ordinary social media users.

Cuba's comprehensive Penal Code, adopted by the National Assembly in May 2022 and published in the Official Gazette in September 2022, came into force in December 2022. It explicitly criminalizes cybercrime offences such as 'dissemination of fake news' and 'propaganda against the constitutional order,' classifies social media use as an aggravating circumstance, and sets sentences of up to 15 years for online political speech.

Cuba enacted Law 149/2022 on Personal Data Protection, establishing a formal framework for the collection and processing of citizens' personal data under Article 97 of the Constitution. Enforced by the Ministry of Justice, the law entered into operational effect on 21 February 2023 — though critics note that state security agencies are expressly exempted from its protections.

Published in the Official Gazette just weeks after the mass July protests, Decree-Law 35 on Telecommunications, ICT and the Radio Spectrum — paired with Resolutions 105, 107, and 108 — criminalizes sharing 'false' or 'offensive' information online and grants authorities explicit power to suspend internet and telecom services. Human Rights Watch described it as a direct legislative crackdown triggered by the protest wave.

Following the outbreak of mass protests on 11 July 2021, state telecom ETECSA blocked WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, and YouTube from 12–18 July, confirmed by NetBlocks. Over one million Cubans turned to circumvention tools such as Psiphon; the shutdown drew global condemnation and directly prompted the subsequent Decree-Law 35 legislative response.

Decree-Law 370 entered into force on 4 July 2019, prohibiting dissemination of information 'contrary to social interest, morals, good manners and integrity of people' on public networks, and barring Cubans from hosting sites on foreign servers. It became the primary instrument used to fine, detain, and confiscate equipment from independent journalists and bloggers, with at least 20 people fined and 7 imprisoned for social media posts by 2020.

State telecom ETECSA began rolling out 3G mobile internet to ordinary Cubans on 6 December 2018, for the first time giving citizens device-based internet access outside state-controlled kiosks. The launch transformed online organizing and independent journalism, but all connectivity remained routed through the state monopoly — enabling both access and surveillance.

ETECSA inaugurated 118 Nauta-branded public internet access centers on 4 June 2013, providing the first broadly available (though monitored and costly) public internet access for ordinary Cubans. Users were required to register with their national identity card, embedding state surveillance into the infrastructure from the outset.

Decree-Law 209, enacted in 1996 concurrent with Cuba's first internet connection, prohibited internet use that violated 'Cuban society's moral principles, national security, or public order,' and authorized fines or service termination for non-compliance. It established the legal precedent of state-controlled, content-restricted internet access that all subsequent legislation has built upon.