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Apple, Google pull app Russia disputed

COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS

MOSCOW — Apple and Google removed on Friday an app meant to coordinate protest voting in this weekend’s Russian elections from the country, a blow to the opponents of President Vladimir Putin and a display of Silicon Valley’s limits when it comes to resisting crackdowns on dissent around the world.

The decisions were made after Russian authorities, who claim the app is illegal, threatened to prosecute local employees of Apple and Google — a sharp escalation in the Kremlin’s campaign to rein in the country’s largely uncensored internet. A person familiar with Google’s decision said authorities had named specific individuals who would face prosecution, prompting it to remove the app.

The person declined to be identified for fear of angering the Russian government. Google has more than 100 employees in the country.

Apple did not respond to phone calls, emails or text messages seeking comment.

The app was created and promoted by allies of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who were hoping to use it to consolidate the protest vote in each of Russia’s 225 electoral districts. It disappeared from the two technology platforms just as voting got underway in the three-day parliamentary election in which Putin’s United Russia party — in a carefully stage-managed system — holds a commanding advantage.

Navalny’s team reacted with anger to the decision, suggesting the companies had made a damaging concession to the Russians. “Removing the Navalny app from stores is a shameful act of political censorship,” an aide to Navalny, Ivan Zhdanov, said on Twitter. “Russia’s authoritarian government and propaganda will be thrilled.”

The decisions also drew criticism from free-speech activists in the West. “The companies are in a really difficult position, but they have put themselves there,” said David Kaye, a former United Nations official responsible for investigating freedom-of-expression issues. “They are de facto carrying out an element of Russian repression. Whether it’s justifiable or not, it’s complicity, and the companies need to explain it.”

The extraordinary pressure on Google and Apple is an indication of the threat the Kremlin sees in Navalny’s “smart-voting” effort and the growing role technology plays as an instrument of political power. United Russia’s approval ratings in state-run polls have slumped to about 30%, compared with 40% before the last parliamentary election, in 2016. A consolidation of the opposition vote could defeat United Russia candidates in competitive districts, since only a simple majority is required to win.

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, argued that the app was illegal in Russia when asked about it Friday on his regular call with journalists; Navalny’s movement was outlawed as extremist this summer. “Both platforms have been notified, and in accordance with the law, they made these decisions, as it seems,” he said.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP

The pressure on Silicon Valley companies to block certain content on their platforms is not just coming from more authoritarian governments. In the U.S. and Europe, policymakers want the companies to do more to address hate speech, misinformation and other toxic content. Republicans in the U.S. argue that they are being censored online.

In Russia, the national internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, has repeatedly demanded that the companies remove certain content, on pain of fines or restrictions on access to their products. The government says U.S. internet companies are meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs by allowing anti-Kremlin activists to use their platforms freely.

The Russian government had been increasingly blunt in recent days about its willingness to use threats of arrest to prevent the use of the app. “With the participation of Apple and Google, specific crimes are being committed, the scale of which may only increase in the coming days,” Vladimir Dzhabarov, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, said Thursday. “Individuals contributing to their parent companies’ evasion of responsibility on the territory of the Russian Federation will be punished.”

During Russia’s crackdown on dissent this year, the most popular Silicon Valley platforms have remained freely accessible, allowing journalists and activists to continue to get their messages out. On YouTube, for instance, the Navalny team’s investigations of corruption in the Russian elite regularly get millions of views.

But Friday’s move could embolden the Kremlin as well as governments elsewhere in the world to use the threat of prosecuting employees to gain leverage against the companies. It presents a test of Silicon Valley ideals around free expression and an open internet, balanced not only against profit but also against the safety of their workers.

Removals of Facebook and Twitter posts, YouTube videos and other internet content occur fairly regularly as companies seek to comply with local laws around the world. In China, Apple has removed apps that run afoul of government censors, including software that would give Chinese users access to the open global internet. A 2016 court decision in Russia led Apple and Google to remove LinkedIn from their app stores after LinkedIn did not comply with a law requiring data about Russian users be stored within the country’s borders.

But the removals Friday by Google and Apple have little precedent given the electoral stakes and Navalny’s high-profile campaign against the Kremlin, said Natalia Krapiva, legal counsel for Access Now, a civil society group tracking internet censorship. “This is really a new phenomenon to go after the app stores,” Krapiva said.

While the companies would prefer to be seen as impartial platforms, Krapiva said industry leaders should speak out more forcefully in defense of free speech and an open internet, especially if company employees were being threatened with criminal prosecution.

‘A BIG MISTAKE’

Russian authorities have been pressuring Apple and Google for weeks to remove the Navalny team’s voting app. With Navalny’s websites blocked inside Russia, the app became a loophole allowing exiled allies of the imprisoned politician to continue to reach a wide audience. Nearly every smartphone runs Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android operating system, making their app stores the key artery for getting any product to the public.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, John Sullivan, last week and announced that “American ‘digital giants’” had broken Russian law “in the context of the preparation and conduct of the elections.”

On Thursday, representatives of Apple and Google were invited to a meeting in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, the Federation Council. The council’s commission on protecting state sovereignty said in a statement afterward that Apple agreed to cooperate with Russian authorities.

Apple and Google did not respond Friday to a request from The Associated Press for comment.

Bailiffs visited Google’s offices earlier this week seeking to enforce court-ordered measures against the protest voting campaign, state media outlets reported.

The Navalny app has continued to work on Apple and Android phones for those who had already downloaded the software.

Navalny is serving 2½-year prison sentence for violating parole over a previous conviction he says is politically motivated.

His top allies were slapped with criminal charges and many have left the country. Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption, as well as a network of regional offices, have been outlawed as extremist organizations in a ruling that exposes hundreds of people associated with them to prosecution.

About 50 websites run by his team have been blocked, and dozens of regional offices have been closed. The authorities have moved to block the Smart Voting website as well, but some users can still access it. Navalny’s team also created a Smart Voting chat bot on the messaging app Telegram and published a list of candidates Smart Voting endorses in Google Docs and on YouTube.

Close Navalny ally Ivan Zhdanov on Friday tweeted a screenshot of what appears to be an email from Apple, explaining why the app should be removed from the store. The screenshot cites the extremism designation for the Foundation for Fighting Corruption and allegations of election interference. “Google, Apple are making a big mistake,” Zhdanov wrote.

Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s top strategist, wrote on Facebook that the companies “bent to the Kremlin’s blackmail.” He noted that the move doesn’t affect users who have downloaded the app, and that it should be functioning correctly.

The app is central to the protest strategy that the opposition leader calls “smart voting.” The goal is to defeat as many candidates representing the governing United Russia party as possible by having all opposition-minded voters in each district pick the same challenger — whether or not they agree with their views.

The “Navalny” app coordinates the process, requesting a user’s address and responding with the name of the candidate they should vote for.

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