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+--- Thread: Apple & Google helped Putin to shut down dissent (/showthread.php?tid=265058)
Apple & Google helped Putin to shut down dissent - hal - 03-12-2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/12/russia-putin-google-apple-navalny/
Russian agents came to the home of Google’s top executive in Moscow to deliver a frightening ultimatum last September: take down an app that had drawn the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin within 24 hours or be taken to prison.
Google quickly moved the woman to a hotel where she checked in under an assumed name and might be protected by the presence of other guests and hotel security, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The same agents — believed by company officials to be from Russia’s FSB, a successor to the KGB intelligence service — then showed up at her room to tell her the clock was still ticking.
Within hours, an app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin could no longer be downloaded from Google or Apple, whose main representative in Moscow faced a similarly harrowing sequence. Titans of American technology had been brought to their knees by some of the most primitive intimidation tactics in the Kremlin playbook.
The unnerving encounters, which have not previously been disclosed, were part of a broader campaign that Putin intensified last year to erode sources of internal opposition — moves now helping him maintain his hold on power amid a global backlash over the invasion of Ukraine.
In a single year, Putin had his political nemesis Alexei Navalny imprisoned after a poisoning attempt failed to kill him; pushed independent news outlets to the brink of extinction; orchestrated a Kremlin-controlled takeover of Russia’s Facebook equivalent; and issued “liquidation” orders against human rights organizations.
Amid this internal offensive, Putin also moved to bring foreign technology companies to heel. Moscow deployed new devices that let it degrade or even block Russians’ access to Facebook and Twitter, imposed fines totaling $120 million on firms accused of defying Kremlin censors, and ordered 13 of the world’s largest technology companies to keep employees in Russia and thus exposed to potential arrest or other punishment for their employers’ actions — a measure that U.S. executives refer to as the “hostage law.”
Re: Apple & Google helped Putin to shut down dissent - gadje - 03-12-2022
Apple and Google didn’t help. They were forced to take the Apps down.
Re: Apple & Google helped Putin to shut down dissent - Blankity Blank - 03-12-2022
That post headline needs a serious rethink. I’m sure the intent wasn’t present, but it reads like a Fox News take on the story.
”Russian agents came to the home of Google’s top executive in Moscow to deliver a frightening ultimatum last September: take down an app that had drawn the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin within 24 hours or be taken to prison.
Google quickly moved the woman to a hotel where she checked in under an assumed name and might be protected by the presence of other guests and hotel security, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The same agents — believed by company officials to be from Russia’s FSB… then showed up at her room to tell her the clock was still ticking.
Within hours, an app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin could no longer be downloaded from Google or Apple, whose main representative in Moscow faced a similarly harrowing sequence. Titans of American technology had been brought to their knees by some of the most primitive intimidation tactics in the Kremlin playbook.”
Re: Apple & Google helped Putin to shut down dissent - graylocks - 03-13-2022
Blankity Blank wrote:
That post headline needs a serious rethink. I’m sure the intent wasn’t present, but it reads like a Fox News take on the story.
I agree. Perhaps Hal would like to lay down his life for Apple or Google.
Re: Apple & Google helped Putin to shut down dissent - hal - 03-13-2022
I'm upset that apple and google are even in such a position. They were forced to help Putin - indeed. I'm not suggesting that anyone risk their life for what is right, I am suggesting that in the end, apple and google were tools of an oppressive regime.
read the article - it's a long one
American technology companies have used their power to add to the pressure on Putin. Google’s YouTube platform has blocked RT, Sputnik and other Russian propaganda channels globally, and cut them off from ad revenue. Facebook, which Russia has sought to declare an “extremist” organization, has taken similar steps against state media outlets. Apple has “paused” sales of iPhones and other devices in Russia and removed RT and Sputnik from its app store outside the country.
But American tech companies have also made numerous compromises with the Kremlin in recent years that have undermined activist groups, impaired Russians’ access to reliable information and look increasingly problematic in the wake of the invasion.
Even after the threat to its executive, Google kept its employees in Russia and continued to negotiate with the Kremlin on ways to comply with the so-called landing law, putting company officials there at risk of arrest or other punishment, according to industry executives familiar with the discussions. Those talks were still underway, one executive said, even after U.S. officials were warning that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent.
Apple has similarly kept employees in Russia and taken other steps to placate the Kremlin. The company last year began configuring iPhones sold in Russia to promote Kremlin-backed social media companies, enabling users to activate them with a single click. It is an accommodation Apple has rarely made elsewhere and advances Putin’s goal of migrating Russian people to platforms controlled by the government, according to Russia analysts.
Re: Apple & Google helped Putin to shut down dissent - RgrF - 03-13-2022
When you make a deal with the Devil you play by those rules. Western capitalists had no reason to believe that anything beyond the pursuit of money had any meaning. So long as Putin, Xi and others behaved as they themselves would, they assumed a rationality that didn't actually exist.
Both Russia and China have ideals that only see capitalism as a means to an end - we don't even have that.