Russia's internet censor threatened Thursday to fine Google and Apple if they don't remove an app built by opposition leaders that encourages voters to cast ballots against the party of President Vladimir Putin, saying the companies are interfering in the nation's electoral processes.
The move follows weeks of private demands by the censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, to both companies, ahead of legislative elections that begin Sept. 17. Neither company has removed the app, the latest skirmish in an increasingly intense battle over the availability of potent technological tools -- most of them American-made -- for political organizing in Russia.
Russian advocates of internet freedom denounced the move. "The authorities' demand to remove the app from AppStore and Google Play Store is more evidence of the current scorched-earth policy to kill any opposition thought, word, movement or competition. It is clear that it is illegitimate, unauthorized, anti-constitutional," said Artyom Koslyuk of the group Roskomsvoboda.
Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his allies have made liberal use of U.S.-based internet services in their opposition to the government, exposing government corruption on YouTube, denouncing inhumane prison conditions on Instagram and rallying support for opposition legislative candidates on iPhone and Android apps.
But this adept use of technology has generated an equally aggressive backlash from Russia's government censors, who've demanded wide-ranging takedowns of opposition material online on the grounds that it is "extremist." Russian censors have blocked 49 Navalny-linked websites, throttled Twitter for failing to delete content Russia deems illegal and repeatedly fined Google and others for refusing to store users' data on servers based within Russia.
Roskomnadzor also has called on YouTube to remove Navalny's channel, with 6.5 million subscribers, and demanded that other platforms disable the accounts of Navalny and associates. Censors have threatened to block YouTube altogether at a time when Navalny's channel still pumps out damaging exposes of public corruption even as the platform restricts some content on pro-Kremlin channels.
That's put Silicon Valley in the middle of a pitched political battle in a country that's both increasingly authoritarian and an important market for the companies.
Thursday's order to Google and Apple focused on an app built by Nalvany's political allies to help opposition voters know how to cast their ballots in this month's legislative elections, while also highlighting the group's anti-corruption campaigns. The government ordered the two companies to block distribution of the app last month.
Google took no apparent action. Apple, however, forwarded an Aug. 16 email from Roskomnadzor to a Navalny aide, urging him to contact the censor to resolve the matter, according to a copy of the communication obtained by The Washington Post.
Navalny's team replied a few days later, calling the government demand "an illegal and arbitrary act of censorship." But the opposition heard nothing back from the company for several days. During this time, Apple's App Store stopped providing updates to the app, raising fears that it might get pulled from the store altogether.
Apple did not remove the app and resumed updating it Monday.
Roskomnadzor threatened fines if Apple and Google did not remove the app from their online stores. In a statement quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax, the censor said that "it has demanded that the AppStore and Google Play stop distributing the application of an organization that has been branded as extremist and banned in Russian territory."