Spotify closes Russia office indefinitely in response to Ukraine invasion

Spotify has Turn off Moscow works indefinitely in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reports Diversity. The streaming platform just opened a representative office in Moscow last month, after new law of Russia Requires foreign tech companies with more than 500,000 users to set up offices in the country by 2022. But the law is new enough that most companies are affected (the list includes Meta, Twitter, and Telegram). ) has not yet complied. So far, Spotify, TikTok and Apple have open office in Russia.

Users in Russia will still be able to access Spotify. “We think it’s extremely important to try to keep our service working in Russia to enable the global flow of information,” according to the statement provided to Diversity by a Spotify spokesperson.

Spotify will also remove RT and Sputnik News from its platform, both Kremlin-sponsored news outlets with a large global audience. Critics say both shop acts as a propaganda tool for the Russian government and its foreign policy interests. Canada and the EU have both banned it Russian state program from their broadcasts in recent days, and both stores are under investigation in the UK.

But it’s still fairly easy to see Kremlin-backed shops in the US. The National Association of Broadcasters has called for US television stations to stop broadcasting RT, RT America and Sputnik News; So far only DirectTV and Roku are compliant. Both Apple and Google have also removed application from these stores from their app stores.

But most other platforms, including Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, are merely downgrading or downgrading Russian state-backed channels in the United States, even though they are banning them outright in the United States. European Union. Meta yes recommends RT and Sputnik News channels in the Facebook Main and Instagram feeds, but users can access these pages themselves directly.