Civics: Russia; Google told to clamp down on Navalny’s ‘Smart Voting’

DW:

Russian authorities are trying to restrict a project run by the opposition party by stopping Google from showing certain search terms, allies of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalnysaid on Sunday.

Navalny’s project, an app which promotes his Smart Voting strategy, can help users vote for specific candidates in order to harm the chances of the contenders backed by the ruling United Russia party. His team hopes to use the strategy to gain new ground against the allies of President Vladimir Putin in the parliamentary election set for September 17-19.

However, the Moscow Arbitration Court has now ordered Google and Russian search engine Yandex from displaying the phrase “smart voting” in search results, Russian language news site Meduza reported.