Washington: US Tech giants under intense pressure to pick a side regarding Ukraine’s invasion, at once facing calls to stand against Moscow’s internationally condemned war but also Kremlin retribution for resistance.
Services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have a unique power because of their global reach and ubiquity, but they are profit-motivated companies so a stridently principled stand can be bad for business.
Since Moscow attacked its neighbor Ukraine this week, the besieged nation has urged firms from Apple to Google and Netflix to cut off Russia, while Facebook said its service was curbed for refusing to bend to Kremlin demands.
Twitter, which faced fines and slower service last year over government orders to remove certain content, reported Saturday its network was “being restricted for some people in Russia”.
“Western companies have provided an online space for Russians to get information about the atrocities their government is committing in Ukraine,” tweeted Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis.
“The Kremlin is moving aggressively to hide the truth,” she added.
Some of the companies have so far taken measured steps. For example, Facebook’s parent Meta and YouTube have both announced restricting Russian state-run media’s ability to earn money on their platforms.
“We’re pausing a number of channels’ ability to monetize on YouTube, including several Russian channels affiliated with recent sanctions,” a company statement said.
“In response to a government request, we’ve restricted access to RT and a number of other channels in Ukraine,” it added, referring to Russian state-run TV.
‘Spreading misinformation’
Ukraine’s defiant government has its people on Russian battlefield
“I appeal to you… to stop supplying Apple services and products to the Russian Federation, including blocking access to the Apple Store!” Ukraine’s digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote in a letter he posted to Twitter Friday.
Cook, tweeting a day before, wrote that he was “deeply concerned with the situation in Ukraine” and that the company would be supporting local humanitarian efforts.
Big tech companies have struggled with how to deal with authoritarian governments, including Russia, where Google and Apple complied last year with government orders to remove an opposition app and faced outrage.
As the Ukraine crisis escalated, the tech companies has alleged of not doing all they could spread dangerous misinformation regarding the invasion are facing “Your platforms continue to be key vectors for malign actors — including, notably, those affiliated with the Russian government — to not only spread disinformation, but to profit from it,” US Senator Mark Warner wrote to Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent Alphabet, on Friday.
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