By Alejandro Martínez
Reporter Without Borders launched on Tuesday a new website that will publish material that has been “censored or banned or has given rise to reprisals against its creator,” the organization said.
“This original website’s aim is to make censorship obsolete,” a RSF press release said.
WeFightCensorship.com, available in English and French, will accept and select materials in any format – including texts, audio files, videos and photos – and allow contributors to submit content anonymously and securely, RSF said. The site also has several mirror versions to prevent being blocked or filtered, and offers tips on online anonymization.
“This website aims to exploit the so-called ‘Streisand effect,’ under which the more you try to censor content online, the more the Internet community tends to circulate it,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said in the press release.
In its launch day, WeFightCensorship.com published the two existing issues of the short-lived bimonthly magazine De Cuba, which RSF called the first and only independent publication in the island since Fidel Castro came to power.
Created by former state journalist Ricardo González Alfonso, the two issues were published despite tight government controls on printing presses. It featured stories on neglected topics like racism and the Varela Project, a 2002 campaign to democratize the country.
The magazine came to an end after González was arrested on 2003 as part of the “Black Spring,” a government sweep that led to the arrest of 75 Cuban dissidents.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
