Do you want to know what the average Cuban thinks of their world?

After years of having their freedom of expression quashed by the Castro regime, Cubans are now taking to the internet and blogging about what’s on their minds — everything from run-of-the-mill concerns to musings that are more social and political in nature.

cubablogger

And they are blogging their fears and frustrations in growing numbers, according to the BBC News, sometimes boldly taking on issues that are verboten by the Communist government.

While many Cubans view blogging as a way to more freely express themselves, the risks of persecution and censorship are still real possibilities. Many attempt to say what they want to say without directly criticizing the government so as to avoid a more forceful crackdown on access to the internet, which not tightly policed at the moment.

Yet there are those that don’t hold back in spite of the risks. One website called  Octavo Cerco has been vocal in “advocating radical political change, including the “resignation of the president of the Council of State and the entire National Assembly, multi-party elections and overhaul of the security forces’”, reports the BBC.

Daniel Erikson with the  Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to Western policy issues and analysis, says that the independent blogger movement in Cuba represents an generational shift, “a sign that even a country as isolated as Cuba is slowly moving into the 21st Century.”

The Cuban blogging trend was  first reported on by The Committee to Project Journalists.