Apple has removed apps belonging to Russian social media giant VK from the App Store without advance notice, the Russian firm said Thursday in a statement on its website.
All platforms owned by VK have vanished from the App Store, including VK Video, VK Music, VK Messenger, Mail.ru, Yula and Zen, said the company, which is Russia's largest domestic social media ecosystem.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described what Apple did as "strange, to say the least" in his daily briefing. "We are talking about tens of millions of people whose interests are affected by such decisions of Apple Inc."
Asked if Moscow would intervene, Peskov said it would first seek explanations from Apple before deciding whether to "continue any interaction with this company."
He added that "undoubtedly, this raises questions about the reliability of the service of App Store, and the extent to which it can be trusted as a provider of commercial services."
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Removing VK apps from the App Store is a cynical purging of the information space, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
ReplyDelete"Yes, this is another cynical, blatant act of political censorship," she said. "This is not a question of complaints about any real problems. This is a real cleansing of the information and communication space."
The diplomat noted that VK and its services have never been sanctioned or put on the sanctions lists.
"That is, even this explanation, which cannot be considered legitimate, and it does not fit in this case," she continued. "This is an act of purposeful digital cleansing from unwanted, apparently too sovereign competitors. It's a matter of making this platform really mega-popular."