Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com absolutely loves it when Russian president Vladimir Putin trashes the United States in general and President Biden in particular, so it's loath to publish much criticism of Putin, even though he's very much an anti-democratic authoritarian leader who acts like a dictator -- normally something CNS would be opposed to if said leader was less right-wing. So it was unusual when Patrick Goodenough devoted a Sept. 24 article to Putin's biggest critic, Alexey Navalny. But the focus of the article wasn't his criticism of Putin -- it was on tech companies who bowed to Putin's demands to withdraw voting-aid apps:
Angered by U.S. tech giants’ decision to remove a voting app promoting opposition candidates in last weekend’s Russian parliamentary elections, imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny has accused them of turning into Vladimir Putin’s “accomplices.”
In a series of searing tweets, Navalny slammed Google and Apple for complying with Kremlin dictates, saying that in doing so Big Tech was acknowledging “the right of an authoritarian thief to subjugate the Internet, turning it into an instrument for seizure of power.”
“It’s one thing when the Internet monopolists are ruled by cute freedom-loving nerds with solid life principles,” he said. “It is completely different when the people in charge of them are both cowardly and greedy.”
“One of the modern challenges is that false prophets now come to us not in sheep’s clothing, but in hoodies and stretched jeans,” Navalny wrote. “Standing in front of the huge screens, they tell us about ‘making the world a better place,’ but on the inside they are liars and hypocrites.”
That's more in line with the war CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, has been waging against "Big Tech."
However, Goodenough waited until the last few paragraphs of his 18-paragraph article to note"widespread allegations from opposition parties of vote-rigging and fraud" and that "The Washington-based democracy watchdog Freedom House, which grades countries each year on political rights and civil liberties, ranks Russia under the Putin regime as 'not free'" -- though, weirdly, Goodenough did not mention Putin's name in making those claims even though he's the person behind all that. Wouldn't want to upset the boss, after all.
This came after a Sept. 19 article by Goodenough in which he highlighted criticism of Apple and Google by "Russian opposition activists" in which Putin's name doesn't appear at all.
As we documented, CNS ran to Putin's defense after Biden called him a "killer" over his treatment of Navalny and other opposition figures., happily printing Putin's attacks on Biden in response to the claim.
