This is Cuba's Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify – all without the internet
- Submitted by: admin
- Computers and Internet
- Business and Economy
- Science and Technology
- 12 / 22 / 2015
Media smugglers get Taylor Swift, Game of Thrones, and the New York Times to Cubans every week through an illegal network of runners.
In Cuba there is barely any internet. Anything but the state-run TV channels is prohibited. Publications are limited to the state-approved newspapers and magazines. This is the law. But, in typical Cuban fashion, the law doesn't stop a vast underground system of entertainment and news media distributors and consumers.
"El Paquete Semanal" (The Weekly Package) is a weekly trove of digital content—everything from American movies to PDFs of Spanish newspapers—that is gathered, organized and transferred by a human web of runners and dealers to the entire country. It is a prodigious and profitable operation.
I went behind the scenes in Havana to film how the Paquete works. Check out the video above to see how Cubans bypass censorship to access the media we take for granted.
Comments