MINSK, 25 June (BelTA) – The Belarusian Union of Journalists (BUJ) has condemned the decision of the U.S. corporation Apple Inc. to remove VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, which are digital ecosystems that are popular in Belarus, from the AppStore, the union told BelTA.
“With its illegal and treacherous actions Apple Inc. violates the rights and freedoms of citizens who legally purchase and use the company’s gadgets and tramples upon the freedom of speech, communication, and user access to objective information,” the Belarusian Union of Journalists stated. “The American corporation also infringes upon the rights and capabilities of mass media outlets and individual content creators (bloggers) to create, distribute, and promote their intellectual property. Apple arbitrarily and illegally restricts independent editorial policy and expands the scale of censorship on the Internet.”
According to the union, the response to this policy should be the judicial restoration of the rights of producers and consumers of information of mass media and communications outlets, an accelerated transition to gadgets and services of national and Eurasian companies that are loyal to the audience, to mass media outlets and bloggers, who comply with national and international laws. Apart from that, the BUJ is convinced that an effective response mechanism will include a popular boycott of Western companies that apply censorship and illegal restrictions as well as other restrictive measures (sanctions) of a legal, administrative, and public nature to increase the economic and reputational costs of foreign companies engaged in information vandalism, until they restore the legitimate rights of citizens and mass media outlets.
“We urge our allies to show solidarity. We urge national and Union State manufacturers of gadgets and software to implement decent alternative solutions as fast as possible,” the BUJ statement reads.
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