Cuba USA
In a recent post, I looked into the charge that Coursera had blocked access to their educational material at the request of the U. S. Government. Subsequently, Cartas Desde Cuba charged that the US Government had ordered satellite ISPs to block access to Cuban accounts.
I followed up on these and this is what I found:
The U. S. Treasury Department denies asking satellite ISPs to block access to customers in Cuba and Cartas Desde Cuba did not reply to my email asking for the source of their report. That leaves me with no reason to believe the charge that satellite ISPs were told to cut off Cuban accounts.
Coursera is one of three prominent U. S. sources of massive, online educational material. I followed up with the other two, edX and Uacity, to see if they had been told to block access to their material:
EdX: They applied for a Treasury Department license without being asked to and it was granted (after seven months).
Udacity: Google serves their material, and as far as they know, it is not blocked. I asked Google, but they did not reply. (Google never replies to me).
Coursera: They were asked by the Treasury Department to block access, but they are seeking a license to serve blocked nations.
Overall, the Treasury Department seems willing to grant these licenses (as with edX), but evidently wants to review each case (as with Coursera). Either way, the process takes a long time. Furthermore, how many organizations unilaterally censor themselves in order to avoid problems? This feels more like bureaucratic rust than an intentional policy, but blocking or delaying access to free educational material is a bad idea -- they should clarify the policy.
-----
Update 9/27/2014
Coursera has received permission to make their material available in Cuba and Sudan. The good news is that a Cuban can see the course material, the bad news is that getting this clearance took nine months and few Cubans have the bandwidth and connectivity to use the Coursera site. Perhaps Coursera material will be used in universities.
As I've suggested earlier, Cuba should be a provider of Spanish language, online education.
- Teaching Material For Cuba -- El Paquete Educativo?
Locations of deploying organizations and installations of the offline Khan Academy. The Khan Academy is arguably the most important source of online learning on the Internet. Over 39 million teachers and learners have used their collection of 57 innovative,...
- If You Are Reading This, You Are Probably Not In Cuba.
I've been involved in a conversation about content blocking in Cuba recently. The discussion began with this screen shot -- a notice that my blog could not be found at a Nauta access room in Cuba: I asked around and found one private home where my...
- Cuban Apps In Google's (or Anyone Else's) Online Store?
A Google delegation, led by Scott Carpenter, Deputy Director of Google Ideas, and Brett Perlmutter, who had accompanied Eric Schmidt on his Cuban visit earlier this year, is in Cuba. They have visited two important technical universities and some of the...
- Netflix Comes To Cuba -- Only Fidel And Raúl Can Afford It For Now *
What about YouTube? Netflix has joined Google as one of the first US companies to offer an Internet service in Cuba, but few Cubans can afford the $7.99 monthly Netflix subscription and home access is nearly all over dial up connections. DSL bandwidth...
- Cuban Government Support Of The Weekly "packages"
Cuban blogger Isbel Diaz Torres has written a two part post on the information "packages" that are distributed each week in Cuba. In part one, he lists 12 factors that lead him to believe that the Cuban government may be behind these weekly packages....
Cuba USA
Is the U. S. blocking Cuban Internet access?
I followed up on these and this is what I found:
The U. S. Treasury Department denies asking satellite ISPs to block access to customers in Cuba and Cartas Desde Cuba did not reply to my email asking for the source of their report. That leaves me with no reason to believe the charge that satellite ISPs were told to cut off Cuban accounts.
Coursera is one of three prominent U. S. sources of massive, online educational material. I followed up with the other two, edX and Uacity, to see if they had been told to block access to their material:
EdX: They applied for a Treasury Department license without being asked to and it was granted (after seven months).
Udacity: Google serves their material, and as far as they know, it is not blocked. I asked Google, but they did not reply. (Google never replies to me).
Coursera: They were asked by the Treasury Department to block access, but they are seeking a license to serve blocked nations.
Overall, the Treasury Department seems willing to grant these licenses (as with edX), but evidently wants to review each case (as with Coursera). Either way, the process takes a long time. Furthermore, how many organizations unilaterally censor themselves in order to avoid problems? This feels more like bureaucratic rust than an intentional policy, but blocking or delaying access to free educational material is a bad idea -- they should clarify the policy.
-----
Update 9/27/2014
Coursera has received permission to make their material available in Cuba and Sudan. The good news is that a Cuban can see the course material, the bad news is that getting this clearance took nine months and few Cubans have the bandwidth and connectivity to use the Coursera site. Perhaps Coursera material will be used in universities.
As I've suggested earlier, Cuba should be a provider of Spanish language, online education.
- Teaching Material For Cuba -- El Paquete Educativo?
Locations of deploying organizations and installations of the offline Khan Academy. The Khan Academy is arguably the most important source of online learning on the Internet. Over 39 million teachers and learners have used their collection of 57 innovative,...
- If You Are Reading This, You Are Probably Not In Cuba.
I've been involved in a conversation about content blocking in Cuba recently. The discussion began with this screen shot -- a notice that my blog could not be found at a Nauta access room in Cuba: I asked around and found one private home where my...
- Cuban Apps In Google's (or Anyone Else's) Online Store?
A Google delegation, led by Scott Carpenter, Deputy Director of Google Ideas, and Brett Perlmutter, who had accompanied Eric Schmidt on his Cuban visit earlier this year, is in Cuba. They have visited two important technical universities and some of the...
- Netflix Comes To Cuba -- Only Fidel And Raúl Can Afford It For Now *
What about YouTube? Netflix has joined Google as one of the first US companies to offer an Internet service in Cuba, but few Cubans can afford the $7.99 monthly Netflix subscription and home access is nearly all over dial up connections. DSL bandwidth...
- Cuban Government Support Of The Weekly "packages"
Cuban blogger Isbel Diaz Torres has written a two part post on the information "packages" that are distributed each week in Cuba. In part one, he lists 12 factors that lead him to believe that the Cuban government may be behind these weekly packages....