You have to be both deaf and blind to be unaware that there’s an ongoing Russia-Ukraine situation. It’s touching lives as far away as here in South Africa. Our recent petrol price increase? Yeah, that can be laid at least partly at the door of ongoing events in Eastern Europe. But the broader tech world isn’t exempt either. Major companies have already announced what their responses to Russia’s actions will be. A few new heavy hitters have followed suit.
Netflix, PayPal, and Spotify have all taken action against Russia in one way or another. Mostly, this involves halting doing business with the country for the time being. Because business is business and there’s no point burning any bridges, now is there?
Russia loses entertainment options
Netflix has, according to reports, decided to pause all future projects in the country. The reports suggest that in-production content will be completed, but that anything new must wait till Netflix assesses “… the impact of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine”. Netflix has also declined to provide state-run media on the platform in Russia, despite regulations that compel it.
Payments company PayPal ceased accepting any new users from Russia, according to a company spokesperson. Objections are much the same as those offered by Netflix — the situation in Ukraine has thrown a spanner in the works. Like the European Space Agency, PayPal intends to comply with the sanctions against Russia. What form that will eventually take is still being explored. For the moment, a ban on new users and a total shutdown for some banks and users are on the cards.
And then there’s Spotify. The music streaming service isn’t going so far as to kick users off the platform, but it has closed its Russian offices indefinitely. In addition, the service has pulled access to content from Russia Today and Sputnik. Other Russian state-adjacent content has been made harder to discover as well.
“Our first priority over the past week has been the safety of our employees and to ensure that Spotify continues to serve as an important source of global and regional news at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” a company rep said.
