Russia intensifies censorship campaign and puts pressure on tech giants

As Russia attacks Ukraine, authorities in Moscow are intensifying home censorship by squeezing out some of the world’s largest tech companies.

Last week, Russian authorities warned Google, Meta, Apple, Twitter, TikTok and others that they had until the end of this month to comply with a new law requiring them to set up legal entities in the country. The so-called landing law makes the companies and their employees more vulnerable to the Russian legal system and the demands of government censorship, legal experts and civil society groups.

The actions are part of a Russian pressure campaign against foreign technology companies. With the prospect of fines, arrests and the blocking or slowing of internet services, authorities are forcing the companies to censor unfavorable material online and keep the pro-Kremlin media unfiltered.

Apple, TikTok and Spotify have complied with the landing law, Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor said, and Google has taken steps to do the same. Twitch and Telegram don’t. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Twitter, has obeyed some parts of the law but not others.

The situation puts tech companies in a predicament, caught between their public support for free speech and privacy and their work in countries with authoritarian leaders. It has forced them to weigh having their services in Russia against leaving altogether.

The companies are increasingly pressured by Ukrainian officials and US lawmakers to limit their involvement in Russia. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister has asked Apple, Google, Netflix and Meta to restrict access to their services within Russia. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Meta, Reddit, Telegram and others urging them not to let Russian entities use their platforms to confuse the war.

The companies are faced with conflicting demands from all over the world. Censorship issues once isolated from China, which is arguably the world’s most restrictive internet, have spread to Russia, Turkey, Belarus, Myanmar and elsewhere, as some of them attempt to build a more tightly controlled web.

For Russia, censoring the Internet is not easy. While China has built a series of filters known as the Great Firewall around its internet, the internet in Russia is more open and US technology platforms are widely used in the country. To change that, the Russian government has developed new technical methods to block content, which it used last year to restrict access to Twitter.

Now Russia is expected to step up pressure on tech companies as authorities try to control what information is being spread about the war in Ukraine. Russians have used Facebook, Instagram and other foreign social media channels to criticize the conflict, raising concerns about a crackdown on the platforms.

Roskomnadzor said Friday it would restrict access to Facebook by slowing down traffic. The regulator said the social network had interfered with several pro-Kremlin media outlets.

Nick Clegg, Meta’s top policy officer, said the company had rejected Russia’s demand that it stop independently checking messages from four state media organizations. The company said it would Russian state media prevented from running advertisements on the social network.

Twitter, that said it was pause ads in Ukraine and Russia, said Saturday that it service was also limited for some people in Russia.

The repression “is an attempt by the Russian government to increase its control over these companies and online content in Russia,” said Pavel Chikov, a human rights lawyer in Russia who specializes in censorship cases. “The Russian government will push them step by step to continue on this path.”

Western companies and organizations are just starting to mend their ties with Russia in the face of sanctions designed to economically isolate the country. Energy companies are grappling with the possibility of reduced supplies of oil and natural gas. Food producers face a potential shortage of Russian and Ukrainian wheat. Even European football clubs have dropped sponsorship from Russian companies, with a major championship game moving from St. Petersburg to Paris.

The situation is especially fraught for technology companies. Apple and Google manage the software on almost every smartphone in Russia and have employees there. YouTube, Instagram and TikTok are popular sites used to get information outside of state media. Telegram, the messaging app that started in Russia and is now based in Dubai after disputes with the government, is one of the country’s most popular means of communication.

The new Landing Law is an action by the Kremlin to counter attempts by the tech companies to minimize their physical presence in Russia. The law, which came into effect on January 1, requires foreign websites and social media platforms with more than 500,000 daily users to register as legal entities in the country, with a locally based leader. It also requires the companies to register an account with Roskomnadzor and create an electronic form for Russian citizens or government authorities to contact the companies with complaints.

Establishing more local presence makes the companies vulnerable to government harassment, human rights and civil society groups have warned, leading some to call it the “hostage law.” Last year, Russian authorities threatened to arrest Google and Apple employees in order to force them to remove an app created by followers of Aleksei A. Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader.

“The Russian government would like to have embassies of those companies in Russia,” said Aleksandr Litreev, who worked with Navalny and is the CEO of Solar Labs, a maker of software to circumvent online censorship. “They would like to have a way to pull a lever to manipulate information and how it spreads across the Internet.”

In November, the government listed 13 companies that must comply with the new landing law: Meta, Twitter, TikTok, Likeme, Pinterest, Viber, Telegram, Discord, Zoom, Apple, Google, Spotify and Twitch.

On February 16, a Roskomnadzor official said companies that failed to comply by the end of the month would face sanctions. In addition to fines and possible shutdowns or delays, the law states that the fines can disrupt ad sales, the operation of search engines, data collection, and payments.

“For those companies that have not started the ‘landing’ procedure, we will consider the issue of applying measures before the end of this month,” Vadim Subbotin, deputy head of Roskomnadzor, told the Russian parliament, according to Russian media.

Meta said that while it took steps to comply with the new landing law, it had not changed how it assessed the government’s demands to remove content. Apple, Google and Twitter declined to comment on the law. TikTok, Telegram, Spotify and the other targeted companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Human rights and free speech groups said they were disappointed that some of the tech companies, often seen within Russia as less obligated to government, adhered to the law without public protest.

“The rationale behind the passing of the Landing Act is to create legal grounds for extensive online censorship by silencing the remaining opposition voices and threatening freedom of expression online,” said Joanna Szymanska, an expert on the issue. field of Russian internet censorship at Article 19, a Civil Society group based in London.

Mr Chikov, who has represented companies including Telegram in cases against the Russian government, said he met with Facebook last year to discuss Russia policy. Facebook executives have taken advice on whether or not to withdraw from Russia, he said, including cutting off access to Facebook and Instagram. Instead, the company obeyed the laws.

mr. Chikov urged the tech companies to speak out against Russian demands, even if it results in a ban, in order to set a broader precedent in the fight against censorship.

“There have been times when the big tech companies have been leaders not only in technology, but also in civil liberties and freedom of expression and privacy,” he said. “Now they act more like large transnational corporations protecting their business interests.”

Anton Trojanovskic and Oleg Matsneva reporting contributed.