Fight for the Future — a nonprofit advocacy group in the area of digital rights — has joined a group of more than 40 civil society groups and experts calling on Apple CEO Tim Cook to stop censoring VPN (Virtual Private Network) apps in Russia.
Recent reporting from AppleCensorship.org, a resource that tracks censorship in the Apple App Store by country, shows that Apple has removed several popular VPN apps from the Russian App Store, including Red Shield VPN, Le VPN, HideMyName, and others, in response to demands from Russian censorship authorities.
Fight for the Future says VPNs are critical tools across the globe, especially for people in authoritarian countries where government censorship is rampant and individuals utilize VPNs to access information and exercise free speech. As the letter to Cook states, Apple’s censorship of VPNs goes against its own commitment to human rights “which recognize “the critical importance of an open society in which information flows freely” and state that “hand in hand with the privacy of our users is our commitment to freedom of information and expression.””
“Apple claims to care about freedom of expression, but its censorship of VPNs in its Russian app store is in direct conflict with that ideal,” said Caitlin Seeley George (she/her), campaigns and managing director at Fight for the Future. “Right now, Apple is complicit in the Russian government’s abuse of human rights. The company must restore the blocked VPN services immediately and stop complying with the demands of authoritarian governments to censor content.”
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