Apple removed Russian media apps and several VPN services, submitting to Russian censorship to remain in the Russian market .
Apple removed Russian media apps and several VPN services, submitting to Russian censorship to remain in the Russian market .
In response to a request from the international human rights NGO RSF, Apple justifies these actions by the need to comply with local laws to continue operating in Russia and denies actively removing VPN applications.
"Failure to comply with the law could result in Apple no longer being able to maintain the App Store or distribute content in this country. The US encourages companies to maintain the availability of communications
services for the Russian population, believing that the availability of these services
"It is necessary to support democratic principles," the company's response states .
In July 2024 alone, the company removed about 100 VPN apps from the Russian App Store, 25 of them at the request of Roskomnadzor, according to a study by the GreatFire project, created to monitor
the state of censorship in China.
However, such subordination to the illegal orders of an authoritarian state calls into question Apple's public statements about its
commitment to freedom of information, as set out in the document “Our
human rights commitments", adopted in 2020, RSF notes.
