Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez is one of the foremost online advocates for free speech worldwide. Her personal blog, Generación Y, is translated into two dozen languages and receives over 14 million hits per month, and she started Cuba’s first daily online newspaper, 14ymedio. Sanchez brings her knowledge of communication in closed societies to Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service as the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy’s new Yahoo Fellow in International Values, Communications, Technology and the Global Internet. Sanchez will be on campus for the 2014-2015 school year, and she will teach a series of short workshops and seminars for the MSFS this spring on how to best use social media in closed societies. This interview has been translated from Spanish and edited for clarity.

How did your blog [Generación Y] start and how has it grown to what it is now?

My blog started over seven years ago in 2007. It came to be because I felt in my life very asphyxiated. I had certain elements of my life where I couldn’t really express myself, and I found the blog to be a tool in which I can go ahead and liberate myself from that asphyxiation.

I think the blog has been successful and has gained interest among readers because of many reasons. One is definitely because it is written from a country where censorship is part of everyday life and that is an element that people are very curious about. It also started shortly after Raul Castro was transferred power as president of Cuba, and so a lot of people wanted to know what was going on in the country, what was happening, and in the blog they found answers to that question.

Another element was the fact that it was written by a person born in the revolution, and who was a child of the revolution, someone that was putting out there very critical texts and was criticizing the government, and was doing it with a lot of dissolution from the island. This was a different voice from the official voice of Cuba, which is always the ones who are in power.

I also think the fact that the Generación Y blog was written by a woman, especially in a society where most of the political discourse is handled by men, was something that was very attractive.

Did you ever feel, working in Cuba on freedom of expression, that you were in danger, as power was shifting?

Yes. A few days before I was going to write my first post and after I had made the decision to write this blog, I had butterflies in my stomach. I was very nervous because I knew I was able to cross a very particular line and I was not sure what was going to happen on the other side or what was going to be on the other side. But I also understood that the more that I wrote in my blog, the more that I was increasing the danger, but I was also increasing the protection — the protection that my readers gave me.

How did you get other people involved, knowing this would be a dangerous situation? Or did the hope of protection influence other people to want to join?

Having a blog is like having a virus. It’s very contagious. As other people started to catch on to this, they realized that by doing their own blog, they were opening a space that they didn’t have before. I feel very lucky and very proud to have been a pioneer, to be one of the first independent bloggers in Cuba.

Speaking of growth, how have working on the blog and the newspaper helped you to grow individually?

I have to be much more responsible about how to speak and how to use words carefully because I’ve realized that words can have a wonderful impact or they can also bring the demons out in people, because I’m dealing with a very controversial topic, a topic that generates a lot of passion in people, which is the topic of Cuba. And I’ve also learned how to understand and get to know my country much better. Before 2007, I knew that repression existed; I knew that we lived in a dictatorship. But after seven years of living it myself in flesh and blood, I have lifted off the mask of that dictatorship and now see it eye to eye.

How do you see online mediums helping diplomacy and journalism to coincide to better the world and society?

A big goal of mine is, through my journalism and through our journalism as a medium, that we start breaking down the stereotypes that Cuba is just an island where we drink on the beach and play maracas. We’re also not an island full of people dressed in olive green clothing saying “Viva Fidel.” If my journalism can help in breaking down those stereotypes, I do think it’s playing a diplomatic role. It’s helping other people in other parts of the world understand that Cubans are just like any other person in the world or part of the world. And therefore, we also are entitled to the same rights and the same things that other people in parts of this planet are entitled to, such as liberty, democracy, the right to choose and things like that.

How do you deal with accountability and ethics?

14ymedio is mainly dedicated to an editorial line that is based on information and facts … But we’re also very aware that we’re living in a reality where transparency is not dominant, where information is sometimes spread in terms of rumors, not facts, where public institutions don’t really publicize their facts and figures so transparently, a society where the official press distorts the reality of the information that they put out there.

So our task is to make sure that we provide a newspaper every day that is objective, that is real, that is transparent, is much more difficult than when you operate in a society that does not have those challenges.

We also have an internal policy where we’re not just committed to truth. We are also committed to verbal non-violence. For example, if we’re referring to the Cuban government, we do not say “the Cuban dictatorship,” we say “the Cuban government.” Perhaps after they read the entire article, the reader himself or herself might assume that the government is a dictatorship, but those are their own conclusions, not ours.

What do you hope to accomplish while you’re here?

I have many, many goals. If I can accomplish 10 percent of all that I have set out for, I’m going to be very happy. I want to leverage and take advantage of this academic environment, the collaboration between students and professors, to become a better journalist. I also hope that my stay here can increase the visibility and grow 14ymedio with new audiences so that it’s similar to the likes of similar platforms and newspapers around the world.

I also want to make sure I have lectures and seminars and talk to students about how to use communication in closed societies, in that I think I have a very practical experience where I can give quite a lot because I have the experience of how in closed societies, in the worst conditions of connectivity, one can use social media to amplify one’s voice.

On a personal level, I’m very interested in being surrounded by and exploring the international aspect and the multiculturality that Georgetown has to offer. And if I can leave here doing lectures in English, that would be fantastic.