Freedom House published its annual report Freedom on the Net 2026 on Thursday, and Cuba scored 19 points out of 100, two points lower than the previous year, maintaining its classification as a "Not Free" country regarding digital freedom.
The score is broken down into three components: 5 out of 25 possible regarding barriers to access, 9 out of 35 concerning limits on content, and 5 out of 40 related to violations of user rights.
The decline from the 21 points of 2025 erases the slight improvement recorded at that time and places Cuba at a new recent low, just above Russia (16/100), China, Iran, and Myanmar (all three with 9/100) among the 38 countries assessed.
The report, titled "Seismic Shifts on the Global Internet" and published on October 22, covers the period from June 2025 to May 2026.
Freedom House attributes Cuba's decline to three combined factors: the energy crisis, the rising cost of access, and repression against those who express themselves on social media.
The prolonged national blackouts massively disrupted connectivity during the analyzed period.
According to documented data, the outages render approximately 47.5% of mobile radio bases and 56.5% of telecommunications cabinets out of service, as the backup batteries only support the network for a few hours.
A blackout recorded in March 2026 caused a 65% drop in internet traffic, with recovery taking about 29 hours.
This is compounded by the rising cost of the service: in May 2025, ETECSA —the sole mobile phone provider in the country— restricted top-ups in Cuban pesos to 360 CUP per month and redirected users towards packages in foreign currency, increasing the cost of mobile internet by approximately 13 times.
Regarding digital repression, the indicator that measures the ability to mobilize and campaign online decreased from three to two points. Freedom House explains the change: “The score dropped from 3 to 2 because several individuals were sentenced to multiple years in prison—including a 14-year sentence—for calling for protests on social media during the reporting period.”
Among the documented cases are activist Alexander Verdecia, sentenced to seven years for social media posts, and a journalist who was sentenced to six years in prison for protesting, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In May 2026, Yasser García López was sentenced to five years in prison for his posts on Facebook.
The report also notes that ETECSA "apparently facilitated" the hacking of social media accounts and communications of activists, opposition figures, and independent journalists, which resulted in a zeroing out of the corresponding indicator.
Freedom House clarifies that this is their own assessment, not a judicial finding. The indicated mechanism is that state control over the network and verification messages could allow for the interception of authentication codes.
A report by Prisoners Defenders on digital surveillance in Cuba, published in January 2026 and based on 200 testimonies, found that 98.5% of participants reported having suffered reprisals related to digital activities, with nearly half reporting unauthorized access to their accounts.
At least 23 independent Cuban media sites remained blocked from within the island in 2026, including 14ymedio, CubaNet, Diario de Cuba, El Toque, and this outlet.
The decline in Cuba is part of a global trend: according to the official statement from Freedom House, internet freedom has dropped for the sixteenth consecutive year worldwide, with conditions worsening in 16 of the 38 countries assessed and improving in only eight.
"Authoritarian regimes are redesigning the internet as a control system, deciding who can connect, what they can see, and whether they can be heard," warned Kian Vesteinsson, the report's author and deputy director of research at Freedom House.
"After 16 years of decline, democracies must lead the fight for a free and open internet. Dictators invest in keeping people disconnected. We must invest in making censorship fail."
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