The US technology group Apple and Internet giant Google have justified the deletion of the election recommendation app “Smart Voting” by the Russian opposition with “unprecedented” pressure from Moscow.
People familiar with Apple’s corporate decision said on Friday that the Russian government had threatened to arrest local Apple employees.
Informed circles at Google also said that the Russian government had threatened the arrest of employees and massive legal reprisals. The pressure from Moscow was “unprecedented”.
Apple and Google had removed the “Smart Voting” app, which was supposed to give election recommendations for local opposition alliances against candidates from President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party United Russia, with the start of the parliamentary elections on Friday.
Supporters of the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny accused the US companies of censorship. The companies had given in to “blackmailing the Kremlin,” said exiled Navalny confidante Leonid Volkov. The chairman of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, made serious allegations to Google and Apple: “The authoritarian Russian government and propaganda will be delighted,” he wrote on Twitter. The removal of the app is a “shameful act of political censorship”. The Kremlin, on the other hand, welcomed the deletion of the app.
Moscow had already asked Internet giants such as Google and Apple weeks ago to take products from Navalny organizations classified as “extremist” and other providers critical of the government off the Internet. The Russian supervisory authority Roskomnadzor had threatened Google and Apple with criminal prosecution and heavy fines.
In the three-day election that began on Friday, the 450 seats in the Duma will be decided. Given the tough crackdown on the opposition, a victory for the ruling United Russia party is de facto certain, even though the party is faced with poor poll numbers. Already on Friday there were numerous reports of alleged electoral fraud.
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