How Putin's Pre-War Moves Against Google and Apple Prepared His Clampdown on Free Speech (msn.com) 91
The Washington Post shares a story that hasn't been previously disclosed. "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....
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."
On their own, these moves were seen as disparate signs of Russia' descent into authoritarianism. But they also laid the groundwork for the Soviet-style suppression of free expression now underway in Russia, much as the months-long military buildup set the stage for the invasion of Ukraine.
The article also notes "preliminary evidence that the suppression strategy is working. "Polls, whose reliability is always uncertain in Russia, show that a majority of Russians support the war. In interviews with Western journalists that have gone viral online, Russians who rely on state-controlled media have consistently echoed Kremlin falsehoods about eradicating alleged Nazism in Ukraine while seeming to be genuinely oblivious to the war's carnage."
The article also notes how Apple is responding to Ukraine's crisis — but also includes this anecdote: 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.
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....
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."
On their own, these moves were seen as disparate signs of Russia' descent into authoritarianism. But they also laid the groundwork for the Soviet-style suppression of free expression now underway in Russia, much as the months-long military buildup set the stage for the invasion of Ukraine.
The article also notes "preliminary evidence that the suppression strategy is working. "Polls, whose reliability is always uncertain in Russia, show that a majority of Russians support the war. In interviews with Western journalists that have gone viral online, Russians who rely on state-controlled media have consistently echoed Kremlin falsehoods about eradicating alleged Nazism in Ukraine while seeming to be genuinely oblivious to the war's carnage."
The article also notes how Apple is responding to Ukraine's crisis — but also includes this anecdote: 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.
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But both sides do it
Sorry, which "both sides" are you thinking about? Apple vs. Google? Sure, I can see both of them giving in to strong arm tactics. It's unfortunate but understandable. In this context, though, I see them as on the same "side", that of people just wanting to do business in Russia. The other "side" is Putin and his cronies, wanting absolute control over the people of Russia.
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The whole thing is slanted to sound like Donas is an independent country and that Ukaraine has invaded it.
It very weird.
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Even if RT is pure state-sponsored propaganda—and I'm not saying that it isn't—censoring it just makes it look like The Powers That Be(TM) are trying to suppress viewpoints they don't care for and hide things from their own citizens. It makes the propaganda that does get through (and most of it will, one way or another) seem much more convincing. Far better to inoculate people against misinformation with education and critical thinking skills, and provide well-reasoned, fact-based rebuttals to c
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Re: Both sides are the same (Score:2)
Hi, EU citizen here. I have to do zero extra effort to read views that are different from those of my governments. That's because free press is still a thing in the EU, unlike in Russia. RT is not free press. I understand some people conflate "freedom of the press" with "right to say anything without any consequence" but those are two different things.
Evidence of war crimes points at Putin (Score:2)
You're feeding trolls. Can't you at least change the Subject? But on this topic, my currently pinned tweet is:
So many war crimes. So much proof.
But many Russians still believe Putin's lies about why he "has to" invade #Ukraine.
How did YOU recover from conspiracy thinking?
How can WE implode the kleptocrats supporting Putin?
Yet Google continued to do business (Score:2)
...if it were a small business, where the boss knew those employees personally, wouldn't you just pull out of Russia? Google, and all the big ones, simply shrug at things like that as money matters: "hmmm. no respect for rule of law, physical bully threats; manual says that reduces profits by 35%. Still a win; adjust the spreadsheet and continue". Large companies cheerfully did business with Nazis, too.
Cory Doctrow had the right view of them, when he said these corps are just "Slow AI". The human b
The only way is to (Score:2)
Even as little as a decade ago, businesses could pretty much do as they pleased provided the produ
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The only ways are to take away their choice, or to make them responsible for their choices. Nothing else is reasonable. Either tell them what they're going to do, or make it unprofitable for them to do the wrong thing. Nothing else can work under capitalism. Arguably neither of these things is wholly correct and one or both strategies have to be employed, depending on the situation.
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Nothing else can work under capitalism.
Yes, because capitalism clearly hasn't worked so far. Obviously the idea that the Warsaw pact states ended up becoming better off after the fall of the USSR is total bunk, and economically they were doing so much better under socialism.
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It's got its ups and downs. From where they were I'd have expected it to make things generally better for quite some time, and it seems to have done so. That wasn't where I was going with that though, so see someone about that knee.
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You know the alternatives have a problem when their ups are worse than it's downs.
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Obviously the idea that the Warsaw pact states ended up becoming better off after the fall of the USSR is total bunk, and economically they were doing so much better under socialism.
Capitalism operating in a free society is an improvement for sure.
Capitalism operating in dictatorships seems to be the worst of both worlds.
Capitalism isn't that bad (Score:2)
Cory Doctrow had the right view of them, when he said these corps are just "Slow AI". The human beings nominally in top positions aren't really in command; they're just CPUs executing the money-making program, which relentlessly ignores all other factors but the bottom line. If they showed human responses and acted on morals, instead of the algorithm's imperative, they'd be replaced.
One problem with this view is that the bottom line is often enhanced by corporate morality.
You see this occasionally in the time horizon of corporate decisions. Some companies (Snapper, of lawn mower fame) feel the best way to make money is to get *and keep* a customer: a snapper lawn mower will last 25 years, and you can get replacement parts forever. Other companies (Walmart, selling lawn mowers) feel the best way is to have the cheapest product: a Walmart lawn mower will last 2 years or less, and is not
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You're more making my point than the opposite. Your point is that capitalism is good, if it pays to be good. But ONLY if it pays to be good. If making more money means being bad, it'll be bad. If making more money *requires* being good, *then*, they'll be good. The definition of machine-like amorality.
What I have to point out to you, is that there are not only vastly more examples of "being bad", from the way Canadian-owned mining companies are an environmental and social disaster for nearly every
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You're more making my point than the opposite. Your point is that capitalism is good, if it pays to be good. But ONLY if it pays to be good. If making more money means being bad, it'll be bad. If making more money *requires* being good, *then*, they'll be good.
Making money requires pleasing customers, so the morality of corporations reflects the morality of their customer bases.
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Cory Doctrow had the right view of them, when he said these corps are just "Slow AI". The human beings nominally in top positions aren't really in command; they're just CPUs executing the money-making program, which relentlessly ignores all other factors but the bottom line. If they showed human responses and acted on morals, instead of the algorithm's imperative, they'd be replaced.
That sounds like a general description of any structured organization that isn't ruled by a dictator. But it's also not quite true either. I really doubt Exxon, who is probably one of the more morally bankrupt companies out there, was only considering the bottom line when they gave up four billion dollars worth of assets in Russia, in addition to all of the future yields it was expected to bring. The law (at the time) didn't require it.
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Alas, it's also the description of a dictatorship, according to "The Dictator's Handbook" (Alastair Smith, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita). The authors survey across dictatorships mostly finds guys who will be replaced by the local "400 families" that support them, if they don't spread out the nation's wealth to supporters. They have no choice but to be brutal, to stay in power, and to extract maximum boodle for the 400. Any slacking on the extraction means a new dictator next year.
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The vast US corporation I work for (neither Google nor Apple) has extensive holdings in Russia no plans to pull out.
I bring this up in relation to China every time someone on Slashdot starts going on about "What we should do" about China, as if the people in charge give a shit about anything other than profits.
If human rights was important at all, Saudi Arabia would be one of the poorest countries in the world and Russia would have been cut off a long time ago.
So (Score:2)
"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"???
Wow. So I guess Bryns (street) smarts came into play there....
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> might be protected by the presence of other guests and hotel security
Hotel security vs. FSB agents. Who would win? Find out in today's exciting episode!
After a while (Score:2)
After 8-10 years, leaders of countries tend to get a little crazy. There is a good reason so many countries have term limits on the presidency.
Putin has been in power for 20 years now. It's gotten to his head. Time for a change.
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After 8-10 years, leaders of countries tend to get a little crazy. There is a good reason so many countries have term limits on the presidency.
Putin has been in power for 20 years now. It's gotten to his head. Time for a change.
It's been almost 23 years since he probably blew up a bunch of Russian apartment buildings in a false flag operation [wikipedia.org]. And even if that conspiracy theory is just a conspiracy theory he still invaded Ukraine 8 years ago and Georgia 14 years ago.
Maybe he's going a little squirrely with the isolation and power, but for the most part he's been steadily turning Russia autocratic since day 1.
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Re: After a while (Score:2)
Kohl was fine after 16, so was Merkel. Roosevelt died after 13, 3rd term, would've been just fine for 4th term.
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Roosevelt was popular in his third term, but not effective. Even by his second term he was getting a little stinky with his court-packing plan.
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but if you're talking about his ability to make his agenda work, it'd be hard to find a more successful president.
Nah, I'm talking about making particularly bad decisions. For example, invading Ukraine. Putin got it done, but it was a bad decision. Being separated from the people you are ruling ruins your judgement after a while.
The Internment is a good point.
Re: After a while (Score:2)
$2.6B worth of separation in 2021 budget alone...
The problem isn't the time frame (Score:2)
It's painfully obvious that everyone in Russia knew that invading Ukraine was a stupid and pointless thing but Putin was able to force it through anyway. It's literally his midlife crisis. The problem here is we've let a sa
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Someone suggested (this person [youtube.com]) that when the Soviet Union disappeared, they didn't actually get rid of the KGB (it became the FSB, that is true), and the KGB corporation became in charge of the country. In other words, Putin is just the figurehead for the leviathan.
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Better for us. Sure. Better for their employees? Unlikely. There's a reason the countries have been keeping hostages. The thing to learn here is that obviously any company that's got a Russian presence is a serious risk and likely any company that's in China is also a serious risk. The two countries have clearly been cooperating.
It's fun to watch free speech culture warriors (Score:2)
It's also kind of creepy how they keep weaving the culture War b.s. in the discussions of foreign policy that have nothing to do with it. Tulsi gabbard who just got caught out taking money from the Russians was on Fox News talking about Ukraine and she kept veering into discussions of cr
Cult of Dusty (Score:2)
It's kind of like how car insurance rates work. It's against the law for the insurance companies to c
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I always assume that when a republican complains about gay people that they're in the closet. I'm regularly correct too.
Not all of them. The representative who introduced the "don't say gay" bill in Florida has just been eating the member berries. He's a boomer who longs for the days when LGBTQ+ youth were not seen and not heard. Seriously, there's a video of him ranting on about he believes kids are coming out because they see themselves as celebrities. He's an idiot. There's more gay youth these days because the population has increased significantly since your "good ol' days", grandpa shit-for-brains.
Authoritarianism
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Not all of them.
I don't care.
The ones who aren't in the closet might even be worse.
Also, despite spending quite a lot of money supporting it, Putin is not actually a member of the republican party (that I know of).
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I don't care.
The ones who aren't in the closet might even be worse.
Last I checked, bills still require a democratic process to be passed, so the cooperation of quite a few straight folks is required to attack LGBTQ+ rights. It makes a compelling narrative to claim that self-loathing turncoat gays are sabotaging their own freedom, but the reality is that it's just a bunch of old homophobic straight guys who want to (Republican) party like it's 1899.
hilariously naive (Score:2)
"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 â" believed by company officials to be from Russia's FSB, a successor to the KGB intelligence service â" then showed up at her room to tell her the clock was still ticking."
That someone, anyone, would think this works shows that for all their vaunted smarts, tech magnates ha
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That someone, anyone, would think this works shows that for all their vaunted smarts, tech magnates have the world-wisdom of a third grader.
But the plan was board-approved! It had to work!
BWA HAHA (Score:1)
Enjoying drinking all the tears ofl those anti-free speech advocates who anytime Google or Facebook censor someone's speech so blithely pronounce:
"It's a company, they can censor speech on their platform if they like."
Well guess what, Russia is a country. They too can censor speech based on "Liberals interpretation of the rules". Don't like it, go ahead, sit your ass in Russia and say something about Russia. I promise the Russian Jail is a lot worse than the Facebook jail.
God this website is crawling wit
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I am saying Google is more than happy to censor speech, yet when they themselves censored they cry like a baby. And BTW, I did not stutter, the mere fact you cannot see the damn irony of Google's pathetic reaction tells me you're most likely one the whiny ass bitches on this website who is more than happy to say "It is okay for Google to censor, but not okay for Russia to do the same."
Either you are for unlimited speech or you aren't. And if you aren't you don't get the pleasure of complaining about Russ
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I am saying Google is more than happy to censor speech, yet when they themselves censored they cry like a baby. And BTW, I did not stutter, the mere fact you cannot see the damn irony of Google's pathetic reaction tells me you're most likely one the whiny ass bitches on this website who is more than happy to say "It is okay for Google to censor, but not okay for Russia to do the same."
Either you are for unlimited speech or you aren't. And if you aren't you don't get the pleasure of complaining about Russia.
Exactly!
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Says Anonymous Coward who is not man enough to even post using his own /. ID.
Here is a piece of "Education" for you. Stop hiding and fucking login!
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Oh, And why don't you stand up like a real man and stop hiding under that "Anonymous Coward" label. Post under your own damn id!
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Free speech is important again? (Score:1)
I know it is shocking to the many US citizens whose voices have been censored and lives canceled to learn free speech is important to WaPo, Google, Apple, et al.
Sadly, WaPo is unconcerned that dissent against the US government now makes the dissenter a domestic terrorist. Instead, WaPo is busily vilifying Putin -- acting as an element of US state media.
Leading me to wonder: if Russia invades the USA, will our government start defending our rights to free speech and self-defense as they claim to be doing for
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Well, Putin did invade the sovereign country of Ukraine under false pretenses, and he is having the Russian army shell civilians. He's doing a darn good job of vilifying himself. WaPo might as well tell the world.
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Well, Putin did invade the sovereign country of Ukraine under false pretenses, and he is having the Russian army shell civilians. He's doing a darn good job of vilifying himself. WaPo might as well tell the world.
Yes, Mr. Strawman, Putin deserves vilification. Based on your response, I infer your approval of the destruction of First Amendments rights of many in the USA by Democrats. Are there limits to your approval of the silencing of free speech by Democrats?
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He is chicken-shit and I give it about a 99% chance he will not answer.
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What exactly is it you can't say? (Score:2)
/. will apparently host your complete non-sequitors
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Putin is hardly a strawman. Definitely real, definitely dangerous, definitely homicidal, and possibly a megalomaniac. I don't have a problem with WaPo vilifying him. You brought him up.
Then this other thing that I didn't unpack:
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Then this other thing that I didn't unpack:
Who, specifically, are you referring to?
Do you work hard at being oblivious and obtuse or does it come naturally?
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Putin (Score:2)
I normally don't say these kinds of things, but I feel that it's the only reasonable solution. The world needs Putin dead. Comparing him to Hitler is a bit of a stretch, but there are similarities, particularly them both being dictators who have accumulated so much power and control that they are the entire motivation behind their country's actions. And those actions are to the detriment of world peace and stability.
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Gorby is still alive...maybe bring him back?
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wrong logic there, maybe? (Score:2)
a broader campaign that Putin intensified last year to erode sources of internal opposition â" moves now helping him maintain his hold on power
Or maybe most of us got this the wrong way.
Remember how they say that no american president has lost his re-election during a war? (or something like that)
What if it's the same for Russia? If the whole war serves - just like it does for the US so often - to distract the country from internal problems and helps the president to solidify his power?
That might explain why a quick-win (which the western media thought was the purpose) isn't the goal and never has been. The war will drag on until Putin has silence
bunch of bullshit (Score:1)
Once a KGB agent.. always a KGB... (Score:1)
Well, he did a good job pretending to support democracy over the previous years... had a lot of us fooled.. but now it's pretty clear he's reintroducing his brand of communism back again...
If so he not only made fools of us but of all those who believed the Marian prophecies where "Russia would be converted and be the light of the world".
Clearly that's never going to happen... OK so maybe y'all don't believe religious prophecies but millions around the world do. And they're all wrong now.. I wonder how this