Analysts warn that Apple’s removal of two apps from an independent media site from its Russian App Store sets a “dangerous precedent.”
The affected apps are for Current Time, a Russian-language network produced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, or RFE/RL, in cooperation with VOA, and a Kyrgyz-language news app.
RFE/RL and VOA are independent media outlets funded by the U.S. Congress.
In a letter to RFE/RL, Apple said the action was in response to content that is deemed illegal in Russia. Apple added that in Russia, RFE/RL is labeled an “undesirable” organization.
RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said he is concerned about Apple’s compliance with Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulatory agency.
“We hope this decision — which is part of a trend to deny people in authoritarian countries access to uncensored information — will be reversed,” Capus said in a statement shared with VOA.
Digital rights experts condemned the move.
“These trends set a dangerous precedent in which tech companies could inadvertently aid state-sponsored information censorship,” Matt Mahmoudi of Amnesty Tech told VOA.
When tech companies comply with foreign government requests, it could be because they “place profit margins over their obligations under international law,” according to Mahmoudi. These bans violate the U.N. right to free expression, he said.
Apple did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, called on Apple to reinstate the apps.
Such bans “restrict access to vital information and embolden authoritarian regimes seeking to silence independent media in countries like Russia,” said CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, Gulnoza Said.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, analysts have documented how Moscow has used internet blocks along with laws around false information about the war and so-called “undesirable” organizations to block independent media.
Access to independent news is limited, with websites, including RFE/RL and VOA, blocked. In February, Russia also designated RFE/RL an “undesirable organization.” The designation means that an entity is seen as a threat to national security. These organizations and their audiences can face penalties as a result.
Separately, Russia experienced a mass YouTube outage in August. The platform is one of the few remaining sites where audiences can access independent information.
The country has long experienced slow playback speeds, making video-watching nearly impossible.
Russia at the time blamed YouTube’s parent company Google. But investigative reporters found Russia’s state regulator responsible. YouTube also rejected claims that it was responsible for the slowdown.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment.
To circumvent censorship, audiences often rely on Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, to access banned apps, according to Anastasia Zhyrmont of the digital civil rights group Access Now.
Last month, Apple was criticized after it banned 98 VPN services from its Russian App Store. The media regulator in July had publicly requested 25 be removed.
“The trend is very concerning,” Zhyrmont told VOA. “VPNs are essential for users in restrictive environments, especially in Russia.”
Some media sites that Russia has banned use technologies embedded in apps to circumvent the firewalls and bans. The news website Meduza, which is blocked inside Russia, uses data obfuscation technology to reach Russian audiences without a VPN, according to a representative from their tech team.
"It is cat-mice game — they're trying to block our tech, and we’re trying to come up with something new," the representative, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told VOA in an email.
Zhyrmont wants Apple to offer transparency on its decision to remove the news apps from the Russian market and on what Roskomnadzor’s requests looked like.
Until then, she said, “There’s an agreement between digital rights experts and human rights defenders that all that is happening is an act of censorship.”
Russia scores 20 out of 100 on the Freedom on the Net index, where 0 shows the most restrictive digital environments.
