The irony will not be lost on anyone—Russia has just accused both Facebook and Google of “illegal” and “unacceptable” election interference during a poll in the country. And, no, you didn’t read that wrong.
The “facts,” the country’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor says in its statement, point to “the distribution of political advertising on Google and Facebook at a time prohibited by Russian election law.”
Roskomnadzor has has come to prominence recently as Russia progresses its plans to enable internet separation and for switching off parts of its mobile network to stymie anti-Putin protestors. Meanwhile, Russia has been painted as the world’s leading proponent of election interference. It’s a heady mix.
These new allegations relate to the running of political ads on voting day—September 8, despite, the regulator says, warnings that such action would break the country’s election laws. “During the monitoring of mass media on voting day, on Google’s search engine, on Facebook and on YouTube, political advertising was established.”
Roskomnadzor claims the actions of the U.S. giants “can be considered as interference in the sovereign affairs of Russia and obstructing the holding of democratic elections in the Russian Federation.” Ironic pause. “Such actions by foreign actors,” it says, “are unacceptable.”
According to Russian media, a member of Russia’s Civic Chamber, Aleksandr Malkevich, claimed that Google “displayed ads for the so-called ‘Smart Voting’ system promoted by opposition figure and video blogger Aleksey Navalny—these ads are said to have been shown to users searching for data on the local elections in Moscow.”
Meanwhile, Facebook allegedly “blocked two posts that Moscow’s Election Commission had tried putting up on its account—detailing how violations during the ongoing vote are being verified.”
Russia has itself, of course, been widely accused of widespread election and population interference. More so than anywhere else, the country has been seen to lead the way in the use of social media platforms and data analytics to play games with news and information dissemination overseas.
Meanwhile, in Russia, both Google and Facebook have been threatened with restrictions or even bans in Russia for not playing along with censorship and the storage of data overseas. But that’s not the story here.
No comments as yet from either tech firm.
IAmNoSherlock on September 9th, 2019 at 08:51 UTC »
goverment level: “no u”
WholeAttempt on September 9th, 2019 at 06:25 UTC »
If they keep up these shenanigans Putin may only win 143% of the vote.
Exodus__00 on September 9th, 2019 at 05:50 UTC »
they deadass pulled that uno reverse card