Amidst the ongoing Russia-Ukraine clashes, Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor has banned Google News, accusing the news aggregator of ‘spreading disinformation’ about the country’s military operation in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Russia’s Interfax news agency confirmed that Russia’s communication regulator Roskomnadzor determined that the website “provided access to numerous publications and materials containing unreliable socially significant information about the course of a special military operation on the territory of Ukraine.”
Roskomnadzor said they had acted on a request from the office of Russia’s prosecutor general. Last week, the Russian communications watchdog had accused Google and its subsidiary YouTube of terrorist activities, asking them to stop broadcasting anti-Russian videos.
⚡️Russia bans Google News service.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 23, 2022
Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, or Roskomnadzor, has banned Google News service, accusing it of spreading “false news” about Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“The American online news resource in question provided access to numerous publications and materials containing inauthentic and publicly important information about the course of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine,” the Russian regulator said.
The tech giant Google had also earlier this month announced it would stop selling all online ads in Russia. Alphabet said they would block the advert payments to websites and YouTube videos that spread either false or harmful information about the war.
Responding to the ban, Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, said, “We’ve confirmed that some people are having difficulty accessing the Google News app and website in Russia and that this is not due to any technical issues on our end”.
In a statement, “We’ve worked hard to keep information services like News accessible to people in Russia for as long as possible”.
Prior to the decision. Google had taken Russian news outlets RT and Sputnik off their platforms in YouTube. Earlier in March, Google had blocked the Apps of Russian media portals RT and Sputnik News from its play store.
Google’s parent company Alphabet had also confirmed that they are blocking Russian media portals like RT and Sputnik etc from Google News search results.
Russia bans Instagram after Meta allows calls for violence against Russians
The ban on Google News comes days after Russia had blocked several English-language websites, including Facebook and Instagram since Russia launched its military operations in Ukraine in late February. Russian lawmakers had also passed a new law that makes it illegal to report on events that could discredit the Russian forces. Similarly, the Russian court had banned Facebook and Instagram in the country, labelling its parent company Meta as “extremist”.
The ban on the sites came along with an access ban on western media outlets. Keeping the situation in mind, global media outlets have temporarily suspended reporting from Russia, the regulator had said. These organisations include the BBC, CNN, CBC, CBS News and Bloomberg News. Many news outlets had also removed the bylines of Russia-based journalists after assessing threats to their security.
The Russian ban on Meta came after Facebook and Instagram updated their policy allowing calls for violence against Russians and assassinations of President Putin and Belarus President Lukashenko on their platforms. The action against British and American news outlets came after the US and UK banned Russian media outlets in their respective countries.
In its defence, Russian communication regulator Roskomnadzor had claimed that false information was being peddled in the country on the behest of its enemies, including the US and its Western European allies.
