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Apple is continuing to cooperate with authoritarian censorship demands in Hong Kong and Russia, according to two reports from free speech campaign group GreatFire.
GreatFire’s AppleCensorship Project concludes that the company is failing to uphold its users rights to access information freely and express their views online.
“In the name of profit, Apple censors millions of users from all aspects of society: from activists and political figures to members of vulnerable minorities such as the LGBTQ+ community in Russia or religious and ethnic minorities in China,” says Benjamin Ismail, director of the AppleCensorship project.
The Apps at Risk report describes Apple as a ‘kill switch’ at the disposal of the Chinese censors, thanks to Hong Kong’s reliance on mobile apps that are banned in China.
And, it points out, while Hong Kong’s App Store remains relatively free compared to China’s App Store, it is still highly restricted, with more than 50 VPN and private browsing apps found to be unavailable. Overall, around 2,370 apps available elsewhere are missing from the Hong Kong App Store.
AppleCensorship is calling for Apple to declare publicly how it will respond if Beijing increases its crackdown on digital freedoms and access to information in Hong Kong.
“Apple should make it very clear what actions it will, or will not take, to resist app takedown requests from Beijing or from Hong Kong’s government agencies,” says Ismail.
Meanwhile, in Russia, AppleCensorship’s research indicates that specific groups of apps have been targeted by the Russian authorities, with Apple apparently having been compliant since 2018.
Most noticeable are LGBTQ+ related apps, with at least 25 apps currently unavailable, including some of the most popular LGBTQ+ apps in the world.
Meanwhile, more than 30 VPN and private browsing apps have been taken down in Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, and news apps are continuing to disappear. Overall, says the group, 2,754 apps are missing from the Russian App Store.
“Apple’s content curation policies represent a denial of the company’s stated principles and values and show a lack of respect for privacy and the protection of users’ rights,” says Ismail.
“In Russia, Apple has enabled censorship of vulnerable communities while promoting apps that are used by the government for surveillance purposes.”
Ismail says that neither Apple’s temporary withdrawal from Russia following the start of the war in Ukraine, and its decision to move part of its production out of China, has not provided tangible evidence of any improvement of the situation in the App Store so far.
He says he hopes that lawmakers around the world may introduce antitrust measures that could limit Apple’s effective control of available apps.
“For all we know, Apple is still willing to collaborate with repressive regimes,” he says. “We need to ensure that Apple will not contribute further to censorship and the erosion of democracy worldwide.”
We’ve contacted Apple for a response.
