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A young man pretended to be a robber wielding a machete in the street of the well-known Cuban City of Parks, while another filmed the scene for social media, terrifying an elderly man who ran away in desperation, pleading for help and convinced that they wanted to kill him. This was reported this Sunday by the Facebook page Holguín en fotos.
The neighbors in the neighborhood rushed to help the elderly man before discovering that it was a setup to create viral content. The old man knocked on doors desperately, shouting for help, unaware that he was the victim of an alleged "prank," the source described.
The post, which included an image generated by artificial intelligence to illustrate the scene, sparked a wave of outrage and ignited the debate over the ethical boundaries of digital content in Cuba.
"The fear of one person cannot be the entertainment of another," wrote the author of the post, who added: "Creating content should not mean losing empathy or playing with the fears of others. The pursuit of a reaction, a view, or a few seconds of fame should never take precedence over the safety and peace of individuals."
The citizens' reaction in the comments was unanimous in its rejection. One user warned that "using a weapon to create content is still a crime."
Another pointed out that the elderly man "deserves respect; he could suffer a heart attack or fall, with the consequences we know."
A commentator presented an even graver scenario: "The grace could come at a high cost... imagine if the person happens to be an authorized firearm holder and uses it... if he kills someone, it could be self-defense... and that's where the little comic ends."
Other users demanded that the police be called, and several lamented the loss of values reflected in the incident.
" so many values have been lost that one is left speechless, everything is just a joke... there is no respect for anything... and everything goes online... they film first and then, if they can, they help," wrote one of them.
The incident occurs in the context of a sustained escalation of insecurity in Cuba, where elderly individuals have become a preferred target of crime.
The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit (OCAC) documented 2,833 verified crimes in 2025, a 115% increase compared to 2024 and a 337% increase compared to 2023, with thefts as the predominant crime: 1,536 cases, a rise of 479% since 2023.
The historian and researcher Julio César González Pagés, who was recently assaulted by two minors in Havana, warned that "older adults are now the focus of thefts and assaults" and linked this phenomenon to "the abrupt end of the school year and the precariousness in which we live."
In Holguín, the OCAC recorded 40 criminal cases in the first half of 2024, and youth gangs have grown in organization and presence in multiple municipalities across the country during 2026, according to reports from independent media.
In this climate, the "joke" about the machete not only posed an immediate physical risk to an elderly person but also normalizes simulated violence against vulnerable individuals in an environment where real violence is already a daily threat.
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