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Russia Restricting Google News Over Aggregated Stories About Ukraine War

Google News is being restricted for users in Russia as the information battle over the Ukraine war continues within the country.

imad-khan
imad-khan
Imad Khan Senior Reporter
Imad is a senior reporter covering Google and internet culture. Hailing from Texas, Imad started his journalism career in 2013 and has amassed bylines with The New York Times, The Washington Post, ESPN, Tom's Guide and Wired, among others. He also hosts FTW with Imad Khan, an esports news podcast in association with Dot Esports.
Expertise Google, Internet Culture
Imad Khan
3 min read
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Picture of Google logo on a screen as services see restrictions in Russia.

Kirill Kudryavtsev / Getty Images

Russia has restricted access to Google News, a further escalation of the information battle being waged within the country after its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Google said Thursday.

"We've confirmed that some people are having difficulty accessing the Google News app and website in Russia and that this is not due to any technical issues on our end," Google said in a statement to TechCrunch. The search giant went on to say, "We've worked hard to keep information services like News accessible to people in Russia for as long as possible."

While Google didn't outright say that Russia is blocking its news aggregation service, the company did concede in the above statement that there's a chance its services could be blocked entirely in the future.

Roskomnadzor, Russia's federal agency in charge of overseeing and censoring media within the country, claimed last week that YouTube ads were distributing "information attacks" against Russian citizens that were "of a terrorist nature." The statement by Roskomnadzor claimed that the ads present an anti-Russian narrative by Google, an American company. Reuters reported Wednesday that Google had paused ads in Russia that exploited or dismissed the war. This pause came with an update to its ads policy. 

"We can confirm that we're taking additional steps to clarify, and in some instances expand our monetization guidelines as they relate to the war in Ukraine," Google said in a statement to TechCrunch. "This builds on our current restrictions on Russian state-funded media, as well as our ongoing enforcement against content that incites violence or denies the occurrence of tragic events."

"We have long standing advertising policies that outline the ads that can and cannot run on our platforms. This includes our Dangerous and Derogatory policy prohibiting ad content promoting or threatening harm or violence to others," Google said in a statement to CNET. "If an ad violates our policies, we take immediate action to remove it."

According to DownDetector's Russian website, it seems that YouTube is still operational within the country, although there was a spike in crash reports around 10 a.m. 

screenshot-20220324-141302-edge

YouTube crash reports in Russia from Downdetector

CNET / Imad Khan

Unfortunately, DownDetector doesn't look at Google News separately but only Google as a whole. Google itself, however, has seen some fluctuations in crash reports, far more than YouTube. 

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Google crash reports in Russia from Downdetector.

CNET / Imad Khan

Russia has been taking strong measures to clamp down on the spread of information within the country. Earlier this week, it reportedly placed bans on all Meta platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, minus WhatsApp. The Russian regime has also clamped down on certain verbiage regarding the war. If journalists call the conflict a "war" or "invasion" rather than a "special operation," they can receive up to a 15-year prison sentence

The list of tech companies that have left Russia is long and includes Amazon, Apple, Disney, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Netflix, Nintendo, Samsung, Sony and TikTok, among others. 

Given all the restrictions and bans, it's no surprise that Russians are flocking to VPNs to continue gaining access to services. VPNs have seen a surge in downloads in Russia by 4,375%, according to an analysis from AppFigures. Lithuanian VPN service Surfshark said that Russia has blocked 36,000 VPN-related sites this past month. 

Surfshark didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.