Google, YouTube caught in fight between Putin and foe Alexei Navalny

Greg Sandoval/Business
Insider

• Google is at the center of a high-profile battle in
  Russian politics, fought between the Kremlin and jailed
  opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
• Navalny, who was banned from challenging Vladimir Putin
  in this year’s presidential election, had a number of YouTube
  ad campaigns removed from the site over the weekend.
• The Russian government had demanded Google take them
  down, claiming they violate a Russian ban on campaigning in the
  24 hours before an election.
• Navalny’s team say that Russia was wrong to demand the
  take-down, as the elections were for local mayor positions and
  not the same as the issues the videos addressed.
• Whatever it did, Google would have been accused of
  misconduct by the other side. Navalny’s team say this is the
  first time Google has sided with the Kremlin over
  them.

Google is caught in the middle of a bitter dispute between
Vladimir Putin’s government and his best-known domestic critic in
Russia, triggered by the tech giant pulling an ad campaign from
YouTube.

Google removed a series of ads promoted by Navalny’s campaign
(Navalny himself is in prison) which encouraged people to take to
the streets on Sunday to protest a controversial increase in
Russia’ retirement age.

The Russian government had leaned heavily on Google to take down
the ads, which it claims are in violation of laws which ban
campaigning in the 24 hours before an election, citing a series
of mayoral elections on Sunday.

Russian
opposition leader Navalny attends hearing after being detained at
protest against corruption and demanding resignation of PM
Medvedev, at Tverskoi court in Moscow
Thomson Reuters

Navalny’s team claim that the Kremlin is using the law as cover
to silence Navalny, who was not campaigning about mayoral races,
but
a much larger issue which cuts straight to Vladimir Putin and
Russia’s federal government.

Leonid Volkov, an official on Navalny’s campaign, posted a long
Facebook status attacking Google’s decision. He said:

Google explained they brought down the ads for “legal reasons”,
with no further explanation provided. The protests scheduled for
September 9 do not have anything to do with the upcoming regional
elections.

Google has brought down the ads in different regions, regardless
of whether the elections are scheduled in these regions. What
Google did presents a clear case of political censorship.

In a statement
to the Guardian newspaper published on Sunday, Google said
that it considered the Russian government’s request to pull the
ads a “justified appeal.”

“We require advertisers to act in accordance with the local law
and our advertising policies,” the statement continued. Google
and YouTube have not responded to requests for comment from
Business Insider.

Alphabet CEO Larry
Page.
Kimberly White/Getty
Images

The ruling follows a demand from Russia’s Central Election
Commission (CEC) that the ads not be allowed to run.

Navalny’s website
hosts what it says is a copy of the demand, addressed to
Larry Page, who is the CEO of Google and YouTube’s ultimate
parent company, Alphabet.

The message cites a 2002 election law which it claims
demands the removal of the ad campaign. The letter says keeping
the videos up would be “fraught with the risk of massive
violations” of election law — an interpretation Navalny’s team
dispute.

The CEC also claims that publishing the videos could also
break a law banning “interference of foreign organizations in
election campaigns.”

Russian
President Vladimir Putin, pictured delivering a speech last
month.
Sputnik/Alexei
Druzhinin/Kremlin via Reuters

Volkov, the Navalny spokesman,
wrote on Facebook that Google and other tech giants had
been subject to similar demands from the Kremlin before, but that
this was the first time they have complied.

He said Navalny’s team had filed an official complaint to
Google.

Russian lawyer Alexei Navalny has been a regime opponent since
2009, when Putin was Prime Minister under Dimitri Medvedev. He
has grown in influence and in December 2017 was banned from
running for President in the March 2018 elections on what his
team says are exaggerated and politicised charges of fraud.

Navalny wasn’t protesting on Sunday as he is in jail
serving a 30-day sentence for violating public order laws.