A government spokesperson said the company had ‘signed its own warrant.’
The ongoing invasion of Ukraine has continued creating tussles between American tech companies and Russia’s ruling elite, as the country attempts to control messaging around the war by blocking tools that allow outside information.
The unprovoked decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine almost two months ago has continued to have ripple effects throughout the global economy.
While the war itself is facing increasing condemnation from world powers as evidence of atrocities mount, news within Russia itself has been tightly controlled, and people seen as “provocateurs” are being turned in by their neighbors when they openly express anti-war sentiments.
Some of those arrested have said that they often don’t blame the people who reported them to authorities, because they likely aren’t getting access to information that is not produced by the Kremlin or Russian authorities.
But if Russians do not report people who are openly expressing themselves about things that are not in line with Moscow’s pro-war “Z” campaign, they could be thought of as provocateurs themselves.
“In these conditions, fear is settling into people again,” said Nikita Petrov, a scholar of the Soviet secret police, told the New York Times this week. “And that fear dictates that you report.”
Now, however, the Kremlin has another fight on its hands.
Google Blocks Russian Parliament Broadcasts
Russian authorities have spent the last two days scrambling to overcome the blocking of Russia’s Parliament on YouTube.
That was previously its main method of broadcast to the public and the content was a substantial part of the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.
Starting April 9, however, Moscow will have to find another way to bring pro-war messaging to its citizens, beyond pro-Kremlin news stations.
Google (GOOGL) – Get Alphabet Inc. Class A Report said it took the measure after finding multiple violations of its terms of use.
“Google is committed to compliance with all applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws.
“If we find that an account violates our terms of service, we take appropriate action,” the company said in a statement. “Our teams are closely monitoring the situation for any updates and changes.”
Russia Weighs In
Moscow and the Kremlin are pushing back against that characterization.
Representatives for the government have said they will continue to treat Google as another tool used by the American government to unfairly targets its people.
“It is another proof of Washington’s violation of rights and freedoms,” Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin told Russian news agency Tass.
“Washington is ignoring all the principles of democracy to make sure that all platforms, including YouTube, present only the US position. The United States seeks a monopoly on information but we can’t have that.”
The Russian government has already banned social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, which are both owned by the same parent company, Meta.
Several Russian regulators said that Google could very likely be next.
“The American IT company adheres to a pronounced anti-Russian position in the information war unleashed by the West against our country,” Roskomnadzor, the country’s telecom regulator, said in a statement.
Other officials were more direct.
“From the look of it, YouTube has signed its own warrant,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote in a Telegram post.
