In Putin’s Russia, Google regulates you.
According to Kremlin media, the search giant has put Russian customers in the naughty corner.
Users have been unable to create new accounts using Russian numbers and ISPs in the country have been blocked from creating new accounts.
Media sympathetic to the house with the pretty roofs cited government agencies in confirming that, indeed, Russia is being targeted for new account creations on Google controlled sites.
“Telecom operators have also recorded a significant reduction in the number of SMS sent by the company to Russian users,” said RIA.
“SMS confirmation as the second factor of authorization for previously created Google accounts is still working, but there is no certainty that this possibility will remain.”
Google did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
Users in Russia are being advised to back up their account data and look to other hosts for their sites.
That Russia is being targeted for unfettered account creation is not a shock, and if true it does have a fairly easy explanation: it comes down to bots.
Russian bot accounts have plagued popular media sites, including those owned by Google, for more than a decade. The Kremlin takes advantage of such accounts to flood social media sites with garbage comments and troll accounts that will leave comments sympathetic to Moscow.
Perhaps most famously, Russian trolls were credited with tipping the scales on the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of a candidate that the Kremlin felt would work in its best interests.
Security experts have already issued warnings that Russian-backed trolls and bot accounts would be looking to spread disinformation and propaganda to the benefit of the Kremlin. While not overt, the aim is to slightly tip the scales in favor of Russia, and create confusion and chaos in general.
Russia is not alone in these efforts. Researchers uncovered multiple disinformation efforts backed by China and Iran seeking to confuse and divide voters in the U.S. on key issues. In each case, the aim was to either confuse or influence the public in favor of the foreign government's interest.
