Jailed Kremlin critic, Alexey Navalny, has hit out at adtech giants Meta and Google for shutting off advertising inside Russia following the country's invasion of Ukraine which he argues has made it harder for the opposition to get out anti-war.
Navalny was asked to speak at the conference. He posted the comments on his website even though he is not in person.
The new information world can be good for democracy and bad for it. He says it is so. Even though information technology was almost banned, our organization has built all its activities on it. The Kremlin is using technology to arrest protesters. Even with their faces covered, they will be recognized.
The internet gives us the ability to do things we wouldn't normally be able to do. By shutting down their advertising in Russia, Google and Meta deprived the opposition of the chance to conduct anti-war campaigns, giving Putin a gift.
In the past, Navalny has advocated for Meta and Google to allow their adtech to be weaponized against Putin's propaganda machine, arguing that high-volume ad targeting tools could be used to circumvent restrictions on access to free information imposed by the regime.
In a thinly veiled criticism of the tech giants, Navalny wrote, "Should the Internet giants continue to pretend that they are just business for them and act like neutral platforms." Should they continue to claim that social network users in the US should follow the same rules as their counterparts in other countries? How should the internet treat government directives, given that Norway and Uganda have different ideas about the role of the internet.
It is very complicated and controversial, and the discussion should lead to solutions.
Technology is something we love. Social networks are something we love to use. We would like to live in a free society. The bad guys use the information society to drive their nations and all of us into the dark ages.
At the time of writing, neither Meta nor Google had commented on the criticism.
Western companies are closing down services in Russia but not all of them.
Google pauses its ad sales in Russia, Microsoft pauses sales
Despite shuttering advertising in Russia, Meta and Google have not shut down access to their social platforms, Facebook andYouTube, as they would argue these services help Russians access independent information vs the state controlled propaganda that fills traditional broadcast media channels in the country.
In Facebook's case, it's an argument that was strengthened when Russia's Internet Regulator targeted the service soon after the invasion of Ukraine, and then in early March they announced that Facebook would be blocked.
Although it has received warnings from Russia's Internet Regulator in recent months for distributing " anti-Russian ads", it has escaped a direct state block.
This discrepancy suggests that the Kremlin continues to view YouTube as an important conduit for its own propaganda, because of the platform's huge popularity in Russia.
Since Russians have less incentive to try to circumvent a block by using a virtual private network, it's easier for the Kremlin to block access to the Western equivalent of Facebook.
If the Kremlin is intent on shaping citizens' access to digital information over the long haul, it could opt to use technical means to degrade access while actively promoting local alternatives, as a strategy to drive usage of local rivals until they're no longer popular. The Kremlin is said to be sinking money into a tube.
There is an overarching point that Navalny may have, at least, an overarching point that Google risks playing into Putin's hands.
The jailed opposition politician has been even more critical of local search giant, Yandex, which operates in a regulatory regime that requires it aggregate only state-approved media sources, allowing the Kremlin to shape the narrative it presents to the millions of Russians who visit a search
It remains to be seen if the change in ownership of News and Zen will affect the state-controlled news narrative in Russia.
Yandex signs deal with VK to sell its media products, News and Zen
Kremlin critic Navalny calls for Google and Meta to turn their adtech into an anti-war weapon
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