Last week, a new website started by a Cuban dissident blogger began publishing, was hacked, and then banned. But now it's reportedly been unbanned as the Cuban Internet, still far from modern or open, continues to make tiny steps toward opening up in terms of Cuban access, censorship and connectivity to the rest of the world.

Cuba's first major independent news outlet in 50 years opened its digital doors last week, as we previously reported. Run by Yoani Sánchez, a dissident blogger whose views of the Cuban government are anything but the party line, 14ymedio.com began publishing on Wednesday last week. The upstart site features 11 staffers, including Sánchez and her husband Reinaldo Escobar, who serves as the site's editor-in-chief.

The digital paper aims to straddle the fine line between producing independent journalism and avoiding pressure from the Cuban government, which still has laws on the books that punishes criticism of the ruling government with jail time. State pressure was already on 14ymedio with six of the 11 staffers were already brought in for questioning by Cuban state security officials. "We want to produce a newspaper that doesn't aim to be anti-Castro," said Escobar to The Associated Press, but at the same time, "a newspaper that's committed to the truth, to Cubans' everyday reality."

14yMedio's Bumpy Start: Hacking and Censorship

Despite tactical moves to avoid government pressure, like labeling Sánchez's team as "typists" rather than "journalists" because it's the "closest thing to journalism" that Cuban law allows, 14yMedio was almost immediately broadsided by the Cuban government. Though the Cuban government said it was unaware of the situation, Sánchez's site was hacked and a redirect for Cuban readers put in place.

The 14yMedio site redirect was to another site that reflected the Cuban government's official line and criticized Sánchez, though readers outside of Cuba could still access Sánchez's new online newspaper. According to the Wall Street Journal, the 38-year-old Sánchez reacted to the censoring hack with aplomb, tweeting (as translated into English) "Bad strategy of the Cuban government to redirect our new web 14ymedio.com. From #Cuba there is nothing as attractive as what is prohibited."

The Redirect is Rescinded

The few Cubans that can access the Internet finally got to check out Sánchez's website starting on Saturday, according to the Havana Times.

The move probably reflects the Cuban government's edging toward more openness in its internet and less draconian crackdowns on independent thought and expression though only relative to the hermit island's previous stances. Though the government has called Sánchez a provocateur for the U.S. government in propaganda meant to discredit her and her site, 14yMedio hasn't yet taken to publishing any pointed criticisms of the government yet. However, the existence of the site itself poses a challenge to the Cuban government's previous total control of information.

"They are throwing down the gauntlet, althought they are not pointedly or gratuitously provikign the government," said Theodore Henken, an expert on Cuban social media at Baruch College to The Wall Street Journal. "If you read the site, you can see they are trying to be civil, and moderate. It's more an invitation to the government, although it will be interpreted as a challenge."

An Invitation to Cuba to Join the Wider Internet

Cuba has increasingly been opened up in small ways through the expansion of the Internet. In March, the arrival of mobile phone email service caused the Cuban population to go so email-crazy that they swamped Cuba's ancient cellphone infrastructure with so many email conversations that text messages, emails, and even voice calls began to fail or never transmit, according to the AP.

The state telecom monopoly issued an apology for the chaotic launch of the island's email service, called Nauta, but despite the digital disorder -- or perhaps because of it -- the event showed a country full of people who are more than ready for the arrival of the digital age -- they're clamoring for it. What's more impressive is that about 5 percent of Cuban cellphone users have signed up to the email service (around 100,000 people), even though it costs about 50 times more than the average U.S. wireless data plan -- about $1 per megabyte -- which, when you consider the average Cuban's fiscal situation, is substantially more expensive.

Internet access, in the form of wireless email service and wired "broadband," remains elusive, inordinately expensive, and still always watched by the government and other official institutions. It's both an economic and human rights issue for the country, where access to the wider Internet costs the equivalent of $5 US. dollars per hour (the average Cuban government employee makes the equivalent of $20 per month, so imagine getting one hour on the web for a quarter of your monthly salary) and is only available to the wider public in a few Internet cafes spread across the country.

Pressure on Obama to Help Develop Cuba's Economy and Internet

On the U.S. side of the Cuban divide, there is increased pressure on the Obama administration to soften its policy to allow more opportunities for tourism, travel, and financial investment activity in Cuba. According to Reuters, an open letter to President Obama advocating such reforms was signed last week by an "unprecedented group of 44 policy reform advocates and former U.S. officials" along with some prominent Cuban Americans.

The reforms, the letter said, would help Cuba open up "by giving greater freedom to private organizations and individuals to directly and indirectly serve as catalysts for meaningful change in Cuba." Part of the reforms involve the sale of modern telecommunications equipment to Cuban-owned telecoms, as well as handsets and other products to Cuban citizens. If that is allowed, perhaps the power of the internet will open Cuba up even more.

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