“Putin is user number one”: Google employees criticized management for removing the Smart Voting application

Google employees criticized the management for deleting the Smart Voting application and spread memes with Vladimir Putin inside the corporation. It is reported by Bloomberg.

According to the company's employees, the decision to remove the application of Alexei Navalny is a concession to the Kremlin, and also violates the internal policy that the interests of some users cannot be higher than others. Memes that play up this situation are circulating on Google's internal forums.

Bloomberg got acquainted with the memes that employees publish in protest on the company's internal resource memegen. One of them depicts a man reading a magazine with the inscription on the cover: "Putin is user number one."

Bloomberg also pointed out that Google in Russia is subject to serious political pressure, fines and attempts to control the activities of Internet services.

to the Google office in Moscow came In September , bailiffs demanding that the phrase “Smart Voting” be removed from search results at the request of the court. The company is regularly fined for not deleting information that is prohibited in Russia. The total amount of fines for Facebook since the beginning of the year exceeds 60 million rubles.

During the voting days for the elections to the State Duma, the Google Docs document exchange service blocked the files with Smart Voting recommendations, having first contacted Navalny's supporters with a demand to delete them. Roskomnadzor previously addressed this requirement to the Google Docs service.

In August, Roskomnadzor sent letters demanding that Apple and Google remove the Navalny app, which publishes Smart Voting lists. “The mentioned application is used to continue the activities and conduct activities of an extremist organization. The punishments for the mentioned acts are provided for in Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” the department said, adding that the refusal of Google and Apple would be considered interference in Russian elections. After that, IT giants removed the applications.

In addition, the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, announced the blocking of the Smart Voting bot in Telegram, explaining this with “days of silence.” Durov also said Apple and Google's blocking of Smart Voting apps was setting a "dangerous precedent" and the Telegram app could be removed from Google Play and the App Store if the messenger doesn't comply with the new policy.