Here’s how some of the biggest names in tech have reacted to Russia’s decision to go wage war on Ukraine.
Russia’s decision to go ahead with a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine has been met with varying degrees of opposition. While the U.S. and its allies have imposed severe economic sanctions against Russia, others have responded by breaking off ties with them and speaking openly against Russia at international forums. However, not all of the punitive action against Russia has come from nations. Several U.S. and international companies have also begun taking measures of their own to hit back against Russia. These actions range from something seemingly mild as an official note of condemnation from senior company executives — to significant decisions that include dialing down operations in Russia and, in some cases, backing out of deals that could have million-dollar financial implications. Let’s take a closer look at the measures that some of the major tech companies have taken against Russia throughout the past few days. As reported earlier, a little less than a week after Russia invaded Ukraine, Apple has almost entirely shut down its business in Russia — save for the App Store, which continues to work for Apple users in Russia. Apple’s Russian website no longer sells products in the country — and all Apple imports to Russia remain indefinitely suspended. The company has also disabled the official apps of R.T. News and Sputnik – both Russian news agencies – for download outside Russia. In addition, Apple’s payment service — Apple Pay — was reasonably popular in Russia, and it is almost entirely non-functional in the country. Apple C.E.O. Tim Cook has also made his position clear and has condemned Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine. While Alphabet-owned Google’s Russian operations haven’t been affected by the U.S.-led sanctions, the company has taken several measures against Russian state-owned media outlets by demonetizing them. This effectively means that these outlets can no longer run ads on their YouTube videos and earn revenue from app downloads or websites. Apart from known Russian state-owned outlets, this demonetization drive has also affected several pro-Russian YouTube channels. Content from many pro-Russian YouTube channels has also been flagged for spreading disinformation, with several of the videos already removed from YouTube citing similar reasons. Google has also shut down its payment service Google Pay in Russia. Meta — the parent company that owns social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp was among the first to take action against Russia.
