Google blocked the opposition in Russia

The American Internet giant Google blocked further election recommendations from the opposition in its online services during the parliamentary elections in Russia under pressure from the authorities. Two lists of candidates on the Google Docs service and two videos on Google's YouTube platform are no longer accessible. Government opponents blamed corresponding instructions from the Roskomnadzor supervisory authority. Google, the US company Apple and the online service Telegram, which is very popular in Russia, began to bow to the pressure of the authorities on Friday. The two US companies removed the opposition's "Smart Voting" app from their app stores at the beginning of the general election. This means that the application that creates election recommendations for opposition alliances against the ruling party can no longer be easily installed on Android and Apple smartphones. Via Telegram, users were initially still able to receive the recommendations of the "Smart Voting" app via a bot on Friday - this was also over on Saturday. Company founder Pawel Durow said he had no other choice after the decision of the two US companies. The Telegram app, like the "Smart Voting" app, would otherwise have been deleted from the app stores. After the Telegram bot disappeared, supporters of the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny uploaded Google documents and YouTube videos with the voting instructions. However, they already assumed on Saturday that the content would probably not stay online for long. At first, Google did not respond to AFP's request. Informed sources from Google and Apple had previously said that the Russian government had threatened to arrest local employees. Moscow had already asked the companies weeks ago to take products from the Navalny organizations classified as "extremist" and other government critics off the network. In the three-day election that began on Friday, the 450 seats in the Duma will be decided. In view of the tough crackdown on the opposition for months, a victory for the ruling party United Russia of President Vladimir Putin is de facto certain, even though the party is confronted with poor poll numbers.