The Moscow Prosecutor's Office and Roskomnadzor demand that Internet corporations stop access to the Smart Voting project

Apple, Google, Yandex, Cisco, Cloudflare and other companies have been officially warned that not blocking the Smart Voting website and app will amount to foreign interference in elections and even to assisting extremist organizations.

On September 9, 2021, the Moscow prosecutor's office sent to the CEO of the American corporation Apple Inc. Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Google LLC Sundararajan Pichai, as well as CEO of Yandex LLC Elena Bunina, a presentation in which she demanded urgent measures to eliminate violations of Russian federal election law.

The prosecutor's office demands to stop access to the mobile application "Navalny", "containing the project of the FBK organization - "Smart Voting"". The department notes that the structures of Navalny and his supporters are recognized as extremist organizations, and also that the application provides, among other things, for the deliberately illegal distribution of campaign materials. The prosecutor's office regards the provision of the application by an American company as direct foreign interference in the internal affairs of Russia.

At the same time, Roskomnadzor demanded that foreign technology companies stop both providing services to bypass the blocking of the Smart Voting app and website in Russia, and distributing the mobile app through app stores. The agency has established more than 10 foreign providers from the USA, Ukraine, Germany, France, Japan, the UK and other countries that provide means of bypassing blocking. The message of Roskomnadzor also mentions that the requirements of the Russian authorities are currently ignored by the Apple and Google application stores, DNS and CDN services of Google, Cisco, Cloudflare and other corporations. The agency warned the companies that failure to comply with these requirements would be regarded as foreign interference in the election campaign, and noted that it is a criminal offense to assist organizations recognized as extremist.

On September 10, 2021, US Ambassador John Sullivan was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. During the conversation with him, "it was emphasized that the Russian side has irrefutable evidence of violations of Russian law by American "digital giants" in the context of preparing and holding elections to the State Duma," the Foreign Ministry said. "In this regard, it has been declared categorically inadmissible to interfere in the internal affairs of our country," the ministry added.

The Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), the Foundation for the Protection of Citizens' Rights (FZPG) and the headquarters of Alexei Navalny were recognized as extremist organizations on June 9, 2021. The decision to ban came into force on 4 August. We believe that there are no sufficient legal grounds for banning Navalny's organizations as extremist and, accordingly, blocking their information resources. You can read more about our position here . In addition, we believe that the current legislation in Russia in the field of restricting the dissemination of information on the Internet unreasonably and disproportionately restricts freedom of speech, and in particular this applies to the rules on extrajudicial blocking. Their non-compliance with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights and their arbitrary application have already been repeatedly   drawn to the attention of the ECtHR.

Sources

• The Moscow prosecutor's office requires the heads of Internet corporations to stop violating the law of the Russian Federation on elections // RAPSI. 2021. 9 September.
• Roskomnadzor warned foreign IT companies against interference in elections // TASS. 2021. 9 September.
• Foreign Ministry told the US ambassador about the inadmissibility of interference in the affairs of Russia // RIA News. 2021. September 10.