While the armed conflict rages in Ukraine and Russia is increasingly isolated on the geopolitical scene, Apple seems to have taken advantage of the situation to loosen the grip around its policy, particularly with regard to applications criticizing the power in place of Vladimir Putin.
This is notably the case of Smart Vote, an application created by Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin's biggest political opponent. This application, present on the App Store for some time, was deleted last September at the explicit request of the Kremlin.
Closing under high pressure
While a law was quickly passed in the Russian parliament to make it illegal to publish an application of this type ondownload platforms such as the App Storeor the Play Store, Google and Apple had no choice, and ended up removing the application.
Google's top executive in Russia had also been directly threatened by men suspected of belonging to the FSB, the agency that succeeded the famous KGB. But as political tensions reach their peak in Russia, Apple decides to launch the rebellion, andthe Californian companyhas just republished the Smart Vote application, despite Russian legal prohibitions.
A choice by Apple that could seriously hurt Moscow
Leonid Volkov, Alexei Navalny's chief of staff, was the first to share the news, which has since been confirmed. He welcomes such an announcement and hopes that the implementation of free applications like this will allow the creation of a real counter-power in Russia.
Indeed, applications like Smart Vote greatly worry the Kremlin, whose main censorship tool is completely ineffective on this type of product. While political power already has control over the press, paper or digital, radio and television, mobile applications could be the breach that causes an entire regime to falter.
i-nfo.fr - Official iPhon.fr app
By : Keleops AG
