Cuba flirts with free speech

Cuba is using the Internet to experiment with toning down its political censorship in a sign that a glimmer of glasnost has arrived on the Communist-run Caribbean island.

Havana’s decision to open up on the once-taboo subjects of the electoral system and civil society -- by allowing Cubans to question policy in two online forums -- is reminiscent of the early days of free speech in what was the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The new forums, run on state-media websites, brought together officials and academics to interact online for a few hours with an audience encouraged to send in questions and views. The opening has some similarities to glasnost, when Soviet authorities relaxed limits on the discussion of political and social issues and allowed the freer dissemination of news. The difference is that Cuba’s move comes in the age of the Internet.