14ymedio, Madrid, 5 June 2025 — The Cuban Government “officially” presented this Wednesday the Social Communication Law, signed on May 25, one year after it was approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power. The text, included in the Official Gazette with minimal changes with respect to the last draft published, is accompanied by two regulations that complement it, one for the Law itself and another for the exercise of advertising and sponsorship, whose obligations are also included in the same law.
In a presentation to the government media, the vice president of the Institute of Information and Social Communication, Onelio Castillo, who was also a member of the drafting committee of the Law, said that the rule “has the spirit of dialogue and supports the political will of the nation that defines social communication as a pillar of its development.”
However, from Article 5, it is clear what the regime understands by that ‘spirit of dialogue’ and that ‘political will’: “The Social Communication System acts in accordance with the socialist state of law and social justice, democratic, independent and sovereign, expression of the thought and example of Martí and Fidel and the ideas of social emancipation of Marx, Engels and Lenin.”
Numerous independent activists and journalists have seen their work denounced in official programs precisely under these accusations
Likewise, some of the purposes of the law are explicit, and far from the functions of social communication in a democracy, such as “to contribute to the fulfillment of legality, the strengthening of legal culture and institutions, the defense of public heritage, the protection of the environment and the promotion of social discipline; to promote an emancipatory thought that sustains the continuity of the socialist project of a nation and critically confronts the offensive of cultural colonization,” and “to contribute to the prevention, timely confrontation and mitigation of crisis situations.”
As also stated in the draft released last year, the new rule, another of whose objectives is to “stimulate the inclusive, ethical, responsible and safe use of the internet, as a way for the defense and cons
