The campaign led notably by Apple to starve Russia of tech — stripping the nation of everything from iPhones and Airbnb listings to defense electronics — is an unprecedented experiment that may lead to unintended consequences, including pushing Russia further into China’s orbit.
Katrina Manson for Yahoo Finance:
No one has attempted modern technological isolation on this scale before, and it’s hard to say how Russia’s 145 million people will ultimately respond. Cutting Russians adrift from online services may undermine pro-democracy activists seeking to organize antiwar protests. And, perhaps most crucially, it threatens to drive Russia closer to America’s rivals, most notably China.
Restricting online services brings a dilemma. It further carves up the internet and threatens to make censorship and disinformation worse.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice prime minister, is helping spur the tech boycott of Russia by goading companies to act. In 2022, leveraging technology is perhaps “the best answer” to tanks, rocket launchers and missiles, he wrote in an open letter to Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook.
Cook had initially responded to Russia’s invasion by tweeting that he was “deeply concerned with the situation in Ukraine.” He didn’t mention Russia by name, drawing criticism that he wasn’t responding forcefully enough.
Days later, Apple halted all product sales in Russia — despite exemptions available for U.S. phones — and pledged support for humanitarian efforts. But the company stopped short of closing its App Store in the country, drawing another rebuke from Fedorov. In a memo to staff, Cook said the company was still evaluating the situation and that it was “united in our commitment to each other, to our users, and to being a force for good in the world.”
Even if the financial stakes are low, companies still have to struggle with the effect of isolating the Russian people. Cutting off social media and other online services could create a digital fortress around Russia, helping fulfill a goal of Putin’s government.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on March 1st:
While we agree with Apple halting product sales, we believe people are smarter than Apple seems to think and that propaganda can and should be seen, not censored, as it tells us more about the perpetrators and their motives than does a vacuum created by censorship.
Apple should rethink their relatively newfound knee-jerk propensity to censor. Apple should not treat their customers as if they’re stupid, unable to handle ideas or discern truth. Apple, and any other Big Tech company, should not be playing Big Brother, arbiter of “truth.”
People who are confident in their ideas and values do not need to impose silence on anyone.
• RT News: https://www.rt.com
• Sputnik News: https://sputniknews.com
As we often write, the best way to consume “news” is to cast a wide net.
As always, readers of “news” need to consider the sources and interpret what they are are being told accordingly. The more disparate sources you can find, the better. And we don’t mean different newspaper, network, website brands that are all owned by the same conglomerate. Determining the actual ownership of your “news” sources is an investment that requires a bit of time, but it is very enlightening. — MacDailyNews Take, June 17, 2015
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