Russia is yet again in the headlines for tampering with social media but this time things are a bit different. No longer interested in tampering with American elections, Russia has taken a stance to protect the home front from radical, left leaning tech companies hell bent on censoring information from the Kremlin.
Russian officials claim that tech giants such as Twitter essentially censor Kremlin officials while allowing their opposition to do as they wish. This echoes Donald Trump and American conservative media’s claim that they too were being policed unfairly by big tech. I personally think this is a part of Russia’s effort to be able to freely manipulate information that supports the Kremlin’s interest both domestically and abroad. Tech seems to be the only thing standing in the way between freedom of speech and the disinformation warfare campaigns that Russia unveiled during our 2016 elections.