Meanwhile, the Kremlin sent armed, masked thugs to hang around Google’s Moscow office and to the home-and, subsequently, hotel room-of the company’s top executive in Russia. Last September, for instance, when Apple and Google refused to censor a tactical voting app Navalny’s allies had created in advance of nationwide Russian elections, the Russian parliament summoned company representatives and threatened them and their staff-explicitly, with jail time, and implicitly, with violence. Over the past year, a lot has changed: Many Big Tech firms, complying with a law enacted last July, have opened local offices in Russia, which Putin has leveraged as a tool of coercion.
Many other companies, such as YouTube and TikTok, were far more accommodating, removing more protest-related content than Twitter. When the company refused, the Russian government began slowing down (“throttling”) access to Twitter from within Russia. In March 2021, for instance, the Kremlin demanded that Twitter censor information about the protests happening in the country driven by opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s jailing and new information about state corruption, including what appeared to be a secret Putin palace. The Kremlin’s battle with foreign tech companies didn’t begin in January. Policymakers in the United States and Europe must therefore grapple with the possibility that Putin chases Big Tech out of Russia-and the damage that could do to Russian civil society and the internet’s open, global character. Yet the Kremlin, by all indications, is not relenting in targeting foreign platforms and websites. Much is still uncertain, especially as the Russian government continues attacking Ukraine and adapting to Western responses. Twitter has responded by releasing a website version designed to bypass the Kremlin’s censorship capabilities, and the BBC has even relaunched World War II-era shortwave radio broadcasts to get information on the war into Russia. And it has moved to declare Facebook an “ extremist organization” and place restrictions on Instagram. In recent weeks, for instance, Moscow has blocked Facebook, Twitter, BBC News, ukr.net, and many other websites that spread truthful information about the conflict or took action against Russian propaganda. As Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms take down Russian disinformation, ban state-controlled outlets like RT, and demonetize Russian media, the Kremlin has demanded these companies stop-and threatened action if they don’t.
Moscow’s long-growing pressure campaign against Big Tech has exploded since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his large-scale, illegal invasion of Ukraine.
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