It’s getting harder and harder for internet users to Russia to bypass censorship. The American company Apple has removed 25 applications related to VPN connections from its app store in Russia. A VPN connection is a tool that allows secure access to the Internet from anywhere. It creates a secure tunnel between the device and the VPN provider and protects the user by hiding their IP address and protecting their identity and location.

Apple claims it took this step at the behest of Russia’s state media regulator, which claimed the Russian App Store “has content that is illegal in Russia and does not comply with app control guidelines.”

Apple does not respond to the criticism

In a statement, Red Shield, one of the affected VPN providers, speaks of a “crime against civil society” and believes that Apple is only interested in maintaining its access to the Russian market. The company has announced that it will take legal action, but past experience with the Russian justice system suggests that the chances of success are slim. Similar lawsuits have been dismissed in the past. Other VPN providers have launched a campaign to get Apple to withdraw the measure, campaigning under the headline “Apple Helps Putin’s Censorship!”.

Apple has yet to respond to the criticism. However, a similar tactic had been followed in China, and Apple CEO Tim Cook had stated that “as in any other country where we do business, we follow the laws there.”

However, after the start of the war against Ukraine, Apple completely stopped selling iPhones, iPads and MacBooks in Russia. The Russian government welcomed the blocking of VPNs. Anton Gorelky, deputy head of the House Intelligence Committee, told Telegram that Apple was one of the few US companies trying to comply with Russian law.

YouTube is also targeted

In recent years, the Russian government has blacklisted many opposition media websites and banned many foreign media and social media platforms, including Deutsche Welle. Ahead of the presidential election next March, the Russian government has also banned public advertising over VPNs.

But in addition to the VPN, according to information from the Latvian web portal Meduza, Russian authorities have begun to restrict the use of YouTube. The state-controlled telecommunications provider Rostelekom has warned its users that there may be interruptions to YouTube due to possible “technical problems with Google-owned devices’. It is estimated that this may be a first step. The pro-Kremlin news portal Gazeta.ru reports that Russian authorities planned to permanently block YouTube in September.

Edited by: Maria Rigoutsou