Apple and Google Remove a Navalny Voting App to Appease Russia

As voting began on Friday for Russia's lower house of parliament or State Duma, Google and Apple quietly pulled a beleaguered anti-establishment voting app from their app stores.

As the tech industry grapples with how to address a host of complicated human rights and safety issues, the incident underscored the uncomfortable compromises that many tech companies strike in order to operate in certain regions, as well as the increasingly brazen demands of authoritarian governments.

The Russian government had pressured Apple and Google to take down the voting app for weeks, threatening fines and even accusing the companies of illegal election interference.

Representatives from the two tech companies met with Russian Federation Council officials on Thursday, according to the Associated Press, after which the Council said in a statement that Apple would comply with the takedown demand.

A person with knowledge of Google's decision to remove the app said that Russian authorities threatened specific Google employees with serious criminal charges and prosecution, forcing the company's hand.

Zhdanov also tweeted a purported screenshot of an email from Apple to the creators of the voting app that described Navalny's opposition movement and its backers as “extremists,” and said that the app “includes content that is illegal in Russia.”.

Along with its Great Firewall, the Chinese government has long exercised significant control over how international tech companies operate in the country, including a requirement that all foreign services run on servers that are both owned by Chinese cloud companies and located in China.

And it seems unlikely that international companies will withdraw from established markets in protest of restrictive laws.

Given that authoritarian regimes like Russia and Iran are increasingly focused on building total state internet control and even launching their own apps and app stores, there are still security and privacy benefits to having mobile devices and operating systems made by international tech companies in the hands of local users.

Linzer also notes that while the takedown is a brazen act of censorship that may set a dangerous precedent, Apple and Google did achieve something by defying the Russian government's requests until voting had already started and many people had already downloaded it.