Out of the blue, Apple blocked the Echo of Moscow podcast feed. I’m talking about the feed I started building a couple of years ago. This is a thoroughly disgraceful story about Apple caving to Russian regulators and following their orders — even after receiving my response and a response from a US senator.
background
It all started in early August, when “Apple Legal” sent me a message: “Pursuant to Roskomnadzor’s request, we are attaching the notice(s) to this message, and urge you to resolve this matter as soon as possible.”
The attached file turned out to be a copy of a letter from Roskomnadzor (Russia’s federal internet censor), stating that the podcast violates Russian law and demanding that the violation be remedied. The header of the attached document (in RTF format, no less) was “NOTIFICATION of violation of information distribution rules,” and the general reason cited was “False reports of terrorist acts or other inaccurate socially significant information distributed under the guise of credible reports, creating a threat to life and/or health of citizens, property, a threat of mass disruption of public order and/or public safety, or a threat of interference with or cessation of functioning of life-support facilities, transport or social infrastructure, credit organizations, energy, industrial or communications facilities.” Under “Description of unlawfully distributed information,” it simply said: “Information materials aimed at destabilizing the socio-political situation in the Russian Federation.”
There was also an English version — not a particularly accurate translation of the original — and the main thing they pushed was about misinformation and inaccurate facts.
The actual order from Roskomnadzor demanded:
- Immediately inform the owner of the information resource about the need to immediately remove the unlawfully distributed information;
- After 24 hours, restrict access to the information resource if the owner refuses or fails to remove the unlawfully distributed information.
And of course, the implicit threat was literally this: “After Roskomnadzor verifies the accuracy of the information specified in the notification and confirms that the violation has been remedied, access to the information resource shall be restored in the Russian Federation by telecom operators.” In other words, they hinted they’d block access to podcasts.apple.com in Russia — or already had. I’m not sure if that was actually the case at the time, but I seriously doubt it, since nobody had complained to me about it being inaccessible.
In response, I wrote that I disagreed with the accusations and expressed my displeasure at Apple bowing to the Russian regulator.
My response was:
Erin and the Apple Legal team,
Thank you for forwarding the Roskomnadzor notification regarding the Echo of Moscow podcast. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, but I need to clarify several important points:
- Content accuracy: The podcast channel in question does not contain misinformation, as Roskomnadzor claims. It is a collection of personal podcasts from well-known individuals who have long spoken against Russian government policies, particularly regarding the invasion of Ukraine.
- Nature of the channel: This channel is a carefully curated mix of content from various authors who previously ran a radio station in Russia for over 20 years. I helped them create a unified podcast channel to make their content more accessible to listeners.
- Current situation of the authors: Importantly, all participating authors were forced to leave Russia since the start of the invasion of Ukraine. They now produce content that the current Russian regime disapproves of, but which consists of facts, personal opinions, and journalistic reporting.
- Legal context: The Russian government’s definition of “misinformation” in this context includes factual reporting on the invasion of Ukraine and expressions of support for Ukraine. Under current Russian law, even referring to the invasion as a “war” can be considered such a violation. This broad interpretation essentially criminalizes free speech and independent journalism.
- Impossibility of resolution: Given these circumstances, I see no way to “resolve this matter,” as suggested in your letter. The content in question consists of legitimate journalistic work, personal opinions, and factual reporting. Removing or modifying this content would amount to censoring critical voices and suppressing free speech.
- Role of the podcast channel: My role as curator of this podcast is to aggregate content from individual podcasters. I don’t create the content myself — rather, I provide a platform for these voices to reach their audience.
In light of these points, I request clarification on what actions, if any, Apple expects from me. I firmly support the right of these podcasters to express their views and report on current events, especially given the critical nature of the situation in Russia and Ukraine.
I am open to further discussion of this matter and would be happy to provide any additional information that may be useful.
After my letter, there was no response from Apple. The podcasts continued to be available, but the absurdity of the situation wouldn’t leave me alone. How can a country under strict sanctions dictate to Apple what to do with content on its platform? Especially content like this. I understand that Apple wants to comply with local laws where it operates, but in this case it was simply outrageous and deeply sad.
With all this in mind, I decided to write to our US Senator to express my concern about the situation. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of the message I sent (it had to be entered through a form on the website), but the gist of my concern was that I disagree with Apple yielding to Russian regulatory pressure and that this contradicts the values of freedom of speech and the press that I consider important for our country, and all the rest along those lines.
Based on previous experience dealing with elected officials, I didn’t expect a particularly coherent response, but decided to try anyway. The response came back completely off-topic. The senator wrote that he was very concerned about the situation in Ukraine and that he supports sanctions against Russia, and how important it is to support the Ukrainian people. Apparently, that’s their standard boilerplate reply to anything related to the war in Ukraine.
The only thing even remotely related to my inquiry was a mention that the senator’s office had contacted Apple about the situation. No copy of that outreach was provided to me, and I have no idea how it ended.
Nevertheless, I notified Apple about this:
I am writing to inform you of the actions I am taking in response to the Roskomnadzor notification regarding the Echo of Moscow podcast.
After careful consideration of the situation, I have decided to take the following steps:
I have reached out to my US Senator to bring this matter to his attention. My goal is to initiate a broader discussion about how American companies like Apple can be protected from censorship demands by foreign governments that contradict US free speech principles, and how to respond to them. I intend to make this situation public in order to raise awareness about the Russian government’s ongoing attempts to censor information beyond its borders and the challenges this creates for American tech companies.
I want to emphasize that I have no intention of removing or modifying the podcast content. The feed consists of legitimate journalistic work, factual reporting, and personal opinions from respected individuals who were forced to leave Russia due to their disagreement with government policies.
I understand that this situation puts Apple in a difficult position. However, I believe that taking a firm stance against such censorship attempts is crucial for preserving the principles of free speech and freedom of the press that are fundamental to democratic societies.
I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on these actions and any advice on what we might do together to address this issue. If you need any additional information or clarification, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Whether this was a case of trying to scare the wrong crowd, I don’t know, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. As expected, there was no response to this letter either.
what happened next
About a week ago, I started receiving first isolated, then mass reports from podcast subscribers complaining that the podcast had stopped updating and that attempts to re-subscribe were failing — the podcast was no longer found in the catalog. I checked from the US, and everything worked here. However, it appears Apple blocked the podcast everywhere else. We’re not just talking about Russia; reports came in from many European countries. I don’t know exactly what happened, but it seems Apple simply decided to remove the podcast from the catalog in all other countries to avoid further problems and confrontations with Roskomnadzor.
what I’m going to do next
I’ve already sent Apple a request for clarification, but so far no response. I’m not sure what other actions I can take. Perhaps by making this disgrace public, we can collectively push Apple to restore the podcast to the catalog. Hard to say how realistic that is, but just giving up is not our way.
what you can do
To subscribe to the podcast, you don’t need the Apple catalog at all. Every podcast app has an option to add a podcast by URL. Here’s the podcast link: https://feedmaster.umputun.com/rss/echo-msk
Additionally, the podcasts are available at https://echo.feed-master.com where you can listen right in the browser. And they’re also available on Telegram, on the @echomsk_u channel.
This post was translated from the Russian original with AI assistance and reviewed by a human.