For more than two years, the United States secretly funded and developed ZunZuneo, a text-based social media platform, in order to encourage an uprising against the Cuban government, according to a report in the Associated Press. USAID spent at least $1.6 million—money that was publicly earmarked for programs in Pakistan—on the the clandestine project, which, at its peak, reached 40,000 Cubans and involved front companies in Spain and the Cayman Islands.