Our friendly neighbor to the south, Cuba, is pissed off at Twitter for letting a rumor of leader Fiedel Castro's demise—the same rumor that appears regularly and causes a huge ruckus in Miami among Cuban immigrants and exiles every couple of years—go unchecked.

Via CNN, Cuba's state-run media incorrectly identified the guy who started the rumor, and then, just kind of raged in a really silly way:

An expose published on the state-run Cuba Debate website claimed to track down the origin of the rumor that the leader of the Cuban revolution had died. It's investigation led to Fernandez's Twitter page, where he goes by the handle @naroh.

Of course, the guy wasn't the one who Tweeted it first. That didn't stop them from raging, anyway:

The hashtag #FidelCastro, used to identify the topic of a tweet, on that day became one of the most popular tags, known as a Trending Topic. According to Cuba Debate, the "frustration" of Cuba's enemies to assassinate Castro "has led some to try (to kill him) in the virtual world with the hope of accomplishing what more than half a century of criminal attempts have failed to do."

Maybe if Fidel Castro simply got on Twitter, this wouldn't be a problem. Hey, you either join the machine, or end up getting killed by it. Just ask Rupert Murdoch! He's hip to the game, now.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek