Cuba's light will not go out: A network of solidarity and information, the José Martí Cuba Friendship Association

US President Donald Trump has once again put Cuba in his crosshairs, threatening customs duties on countries that sell oil to Cuba. He announced that he would implement a tactic of punishing countries and companies that establish relations with Cuba by turning the global trade network into a disciplinary mechanism. The power that controls the nodes of global circulation has transformed this infrastructure into a tool for sanctions and punishment.

SO WHY CUBA?

Because Cuba is an ideological challenge to the global neoliberal order. It is a different model of social organization. The country's achievements in developing its own vaccines and producing medicine through public-centered research institutes have emerged within a public planning model. Education and healthcare are free. Cuba is being punished because it offers an alternative and successful possibility, stepping outside the capital order. Because Cuba's existence undermines the legitimacy of the hegemonic center.

The historical background of US policy toward Cuba, a small island nation, is built on anti-communism. The embargo, initiated by John F. Kennedy in 1962, was made permanent by the Helms-Burton Act in 1996. On the other hand, as long as the Soviet Union existed, Cuba was not alone. When this balance was disrupted after 1991, America's "free world" rhetoric from the Cold War also came to an end. Trump's reckless and arrogant foreign policy language today is not independent of this historical ground. Trump, who does not need rhetoric if there is no opposing power, no longer feels the need to mask his greedy and overbearing aggression with liberal discourse. Under these conditions, the language of threat is more extreme and more naked. All threats and sanctions against Cuba are a long-term pressure tool aimed at regime change. As a result, the energy supply chain was broken with the cutting off of oil flow to the country. Power outages began; many of the country's important sectors, including health, education, transportation, and tourism, were negatively affected.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA'S FRAMING TECHNIQUE AND DISINFORMATION IN DIGITAL MEDIA

While all this was happening, the news language often presented the economic impact of the sanctions as a technical detail, highlighting a narrative that directly linked supply shortages in Cuba to a management crisis. Mainstream digital media showed only the last link of the chain, not the whole. Headlines such as "infrastructure problem," "economic crisis," and "failure" were circulated. The information that oil was blocked by the threat of sanctions was framed and either relegated to a footnote or disappeared entirely.

Instead of the structural causes of the economic bottleneck, the emphasis on an "authoritarian regime" was brought to the fore, and the role of the US blockade, sanctions, and embargo was pushed into the background, determining what to think about. As a result of false causality in media content, problems (queues, power outages) were shown; the cause was selectively defined (regime, management, ideology). Images taken out of context circulated in digital media with the impression that "there is no medicine in Cuba," but the question "due to which financial blockade?" was not asked. With bot networks and coordinated hashtag campaigns, the perception of crisis was magnified through specific hashtags, and dramatized headlines like "humanitarian tragedy" and emotional interactions were targeted. It was masked that the US is the one blocking the supply chain, causing the humanitarian tragedy and the resulting deaths.

HOW CAN A STAND BE TAKEN IN DIGITAL MEDIA?

Complex geopolitical analyses that do not generate interaction for algorithms are not valuable. In this context, an effective stance in the digital sphere regarding the Cuba issue must be built on three levels: production of information and context, network organization, and discourse analysis.

Source verification culture: UN voting records, official trade data, and sanction texts should be referenced. The resolutions adopted by an overwhelming majority since 1992 show that the embargo faces a legitimacy problem on a global scale. The annual votes of the United Nations General Assembly on lifting the embargo should be systematically archived and circulated with infographics. Furthermore, it should be concretely explained which articles of sanction texts like the 1996 Helms-Burton Act target third-country companies. It should be shown with technical data that sanctions are a mechanism that effectively restricts access to the global financial system.

Data-driven content production: In the context of Turkey, reliable and direct contact channels must be made visible. Institutions such as the José Martí Cuba Friendship Association should be followed as primary references for information from the field, event announcements, official statements, and current developments. Systematically tagging and citing such accounts in the digital sphere prevents speculative content. In short, the source hierarchy must be established correctly.

Contextual content production: When sharing a visual or news item, the effect of the sanctions must be stated. The most frequently used technique in digital media is the image taken out of context. Power outage, food queue, hospital image... If the content is shared without stating the political-economic reality, the causality in the viewer's mind is automatically linked to the internal administration. For every image of crisis or tragedy, the manipulation capacity of the image should be reduced by providing answers to: "What is the status of access to the global financial system? Are there import restrictions? Which sectors do the sanctions affect?"

Algorithmic consciousness and awareness: Instead of content based on emotional manipulation, data-based analysis sharing should be encouraged. Digital platforms reward anger. Harsh headlines, polarizing expressions, and dramatic narratives generate more interaction. But while long analysis threads, data visualizations, and expert opinions generate less interaction in the short term, they build credibility in the long term.

Network solidarity: Cross-verification networks should be established among academics, journalists, and independent researchers. Coordination should be ensured between journalists, academics, and solidarity platforms. When a piece of news is published, people from different areas of expertise should be able to verify the same data from different angles. Thus, collective knowledge production comes to the fore instead of individual accounts.

Media literacy: To expose framing and to name political bullying and power asymmetry, argumentative and critical reading should be encouraged and taught. When content is shared, it is not enough to just say "false." Which data has been left out? Which concept has been highlighted? How has causality been established? Which alternative explanation has been excluded? It should be analyzed. The economic blockade, political pressure, power asymmetry, and international law debate context applied by a state that controls the global financial system to a small island economy are necessary to correctly name the reality.

At the very least, a stance alongside Cuba in digital media is to restore context, make power relations visible, and establish the information hierarchy correctly. In this direction, the historical and economic impact of the Cuba embargo, blockade, and sanctions should be made visible systematically, directed to reliable institutional sources, and the language of algorithmic manipulation should be decoded. In this regard, making the posts of the José Martí Cuba Friendship Association visible for direct information flow about Cuba in Turkey, joining solidarity networks, and supporting their campaigns will be an important starting step.