Cuba creates its own ‘wikipedia’

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Cuba is launching its local equivalent of Wikipedia. It’s called Ecu-red and boasts entries aiming to disseminate information from a “decolonizer” point of view. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with the BBC’s Michael Voss in Havana. Download MP3

• BBC: Cuba launches online encyclopedia

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Wikipedia has become the online place to go for information on just about anything.  Want to know about the universe, well there’s an entry for that. Interested in the Estonian Prune, well there’s an entry for that too.  Now, there’s a new online encyclopedia in Cuba. Cuba’s government launched it just today, it’s called ECURED, E-C-U-R-E-D, and it presents another version of the world and world history. The BBC’s Michael is in Havana, and Michael I know you’ve been perusing the site, which is not too easy to do. Maybe it’s overloaded or something, but at least you’ve gotten to the home page. What does that look like?

Michael Voss: Yes. There’s a large, graphic Cuban flag. It’s got a lot of details, and at the moment, on the right hand column there’s a long list of what you do before you start. There’s a video tutorial that’s how to get on, there’s how to use it. There is a search engine where you can type in what you’re looking for. At the moment I think as you say, it’s probably overloaded because it’s not working. Last night I managed to get a preview of it, sat down. And for example I typed in the United States to see what came up, and it describes the United States as the empire of our time, which has historically taken by force territory and natural resources from other nations, to put at the service of its businesses and monopolies.  So, Cuba is obviously looking to give its, its own interpretation if you like, of the world. Although, when I went on to other places, for example I typed in the United Kingdom, and simply got the fact that it was a constitutional monarchy, one of the most densely populated countries of Europe, there was no political slant there whatsoever.

Lisa Mullins: Well that’s interesting because I guess when, when they say that this sort-of Wikipedia site that Cuba is putting out is is going to be objective, as they do say, but from a decolonizer point of view, I guess it depends on which entry you’re looking at.

Michael Voss: Yes, I think it does. And interesting, if you go on to US-Cuban relations, it suggests that the United States has always wanted to take over this Caribbean island. The entry says that from the earliest times, US leaders have looked upon Cuba as, quote, like those who admire a beautiful fruit that will end up falling in their hands.

Lisa Mullins: So I guess then this is not a snark-free zone on the part of Cuban government [laughter]

Michael Voss: [LAUGHTER] No. But a lot of it, in fact, is about geography. There is a list on the front page of the largest number of articles. Cuban revolutionary martyrs has the third largest number of articles. People in history, and locations. At the moment there’s about 20,000 entries on ECURED, and obviously that has to compare with the more than 3 and a half million that are in English on Wikipedia.

Lisa Mullins: And on ECURED there’s this 20,000 entries all in Spanish

Michael Voss: Its entirely a Spanish language website. The question is I suppose, who is this aimed at. And it may partly be the Latin American and Spanish speaking world. Cuba itself has one of the lowest Internet usage rates in the western hemisphere. About 1.6 million people out of the 11,000,000 Cubans, according to official figures, have access to the Internet. And that’s mainly at work or of course school. Very few Cubans are allowed to have Internet at home.

Lisa Mullins: Michael, anything with the name Wiki ahead of it presumably operates on the principle of user generated content that, that anyone of us can write in a definition for instance. There is an administrator. In the case of Cuba, is there an administrator and can anyone, aside from a government official, contribute to a definition.

Michael Voss:  It does say that updates and corrections will be allowed, with prior approval of the sites administrators. It’s not entirely clear who they are, but I don’t think this is looking at that same open peer review source, with people constantly adding and updating details. We’ll have to see how that develops.

Lisa Mullins: And nobody’s going to write in to say, you know the United States is really not the empire of our time.

Michael Voss: Well they might, but I don’t think it’s going to get changed on the web site.

Lisa Mullins: All right. Thank you. The BBC’s Michael Voss in Havana. Thanks a lot Michael.

Michael Voss: You’re very welcome Lisa.

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