“Twists” will not help
State Duma Deputy Anton Gorelkin said that the American search engine Google may comply with the request of the wife of the Ukrainian President to “de-russify” search results, but this will not help eliminate the Russian language in Ukraine.
According to the deputy chairman of the information policy committee of the lower house of parliament, the Ukrainian side demands the American company “to participate in the information terrorism of its citizens”: de-Russify search results and ban the use of Russian-language content on YouTube video hosting recommendation algorithms.
“Will Google comply with Kiev’s demands? Based on the vectors of American policy, yes: both outputs and recommendations will be improved. Will this help eliminate the Russian language on the territory of Ukraine? But I highly doubt it.”
— Wrote MP on Telegram channel.
As the parliamentarian noted, Ukrainian authorities have been fighting the Russian language for decades: they are removing it from documents, media and education. Despite this, many Ukrainians continue to speak Russian and “resolutely refuse to switch to Surzhik.”
Zelenskaya and Zakharova
The other day, Elena Zelenskaya, the wife of the President of Ukraine, met with Google representatives. She also asked the company to “de-russify” search results for users accessing the site from Ukrainian territory and to disable Ukraine’s link to the CIS region on YouTube. The country’s First Lady also expressed her desire to have Crimea displayed as Ukrainian territory in Google services.
“The point is that when we looked at Ukraine on the map, we were supposed to see all of it, including Crimea. “About the return of the achievements of Ukrainian artists – at least in the digital dimension – to Ukraine,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
In addition, President Zelensky’s wife offered the company projects for remote collaboration. According to him, Ukrainian students and teachers need a presenter.
Commenting on Zelenskaya’s call the other day, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, wondered whether the First Lady of Ukraine would ask Google to specifically display Cartier boutiques on maps.
“Zelenskaya asked Google representatives to show Crimea in Ukrainian to all search engine map users. Didn’t you ask Cartier to showcase Ukrainian boutiques?” — Zakharova wrote.
Disputes with Google
On Google Maps, Crimea is currently shown as part of Russia for users from Russia, but as a disputed territory for Europeans. In recent years, there have been periodic calls to block Google in Russia. Basically this option is proposed by State Duma deputies and senators. Such an offer was made, for example, by Evgeniy Prigozhin, the creator of Wagner PMC. He sent a request regarding this to the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in October last year. However, the services of the American company are still available in Russia.
Roskomnadzor took measures against Google services last spring. Among other things, the Ministry banned advertising of the service and information resources. RKN applied for sanctions due to “false data on the progress of a special military operation” that discredited the Russian Armed Forces.
The ministry also noted that YouTube does not combat the spread of information from extremist organizations such as the Ukrainian Right Sector (the organization is banned in Russia).