Mailchimp is still silencing activists in Russia

In March 2022, Mail­chimp, a news­let­ter service provi­der owned by Intuit, left Russia to signal its support for the people of Ukraine. But it went too far, cutting off the accounts of promi­nent civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­ti­ons that defend human rights in Russia. It did so without letting them retri­eve their subs­cri­ber data. Today, Mail­chimp and other tech compa­nies have failed to restore service for human rights defen­ders, helping Russi­a’s repres­sive regime silence civil soci­ety. 

What’s happe­ned so far

Follo­wing Russi­a’s ille­gal full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine, many tech compa­nies left Russia and Bela­rus. Govern­ments around the world imple­men­ted wide-ranging sanc­ti­ons. Access Now and a coali­tion of civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­ti­ons strongly condem­ned the inva­sion, while also convin­cing the United States and other govern­ments, as well as a number of tech compa­nies, to create the exemp­ti­ons neces­sary to enable pro-demo­cracy and anti-war acti­vists in Russia to stay connec­ted and do their vital and impor­tant work.

The U.S. now expli­citly exempts the types of servi­ces Mail­chimp provi­des from its sanc­ti­ons on Russia. Mail­chimp is based in the U.S. Yet despite Mail­chimp’s public promise to reins­tate the accounts of “inde­pen­dent news orga­ni­za­ti­ons, civil rights, and simi­lar groups, ” it has not only failed to do so, but is also acti­vely igno­ring our inqui­ries on the issue. 

On June 21, Access Now and Teplitsa, Tech­no­lo­gies for Social Good sent a letter asking Mail­chimp to live up to its pledge. Two months later, Mail­chimp is still silent, while the orga­ni­za­ti­ons they cut off are strug­gling to survive.

Who Mail­chimp is bloc­king

Mail­chimp is bloc­king leading NGOs and inde­pen­dent media groups vital for defen­ding human rights in Russia and oppo­sing the war in Ukraine. These include promi­nent Russian media orga­ni­za­ti­ons like Crew against Torture (formerly Commit­tee against Torture), which has inves­ti­ga­ted torture and extra­ju­di­cial killings in Russian prisons for the past 22 years. Their lawyers risk their lives daily to defend victims of Russian govern­ment abuse, so the govern­ment labe­led the orga­ni­za­tion a “foreign agent.” Mail­chimp is also bloc­king GOLOS, Holod, and OVD-Info, as well as charity orga­ni­za­ti­ons that help home­less indi­vi­du­als and indi­vi­du­als with HIV. 

These are many of the same orga­ni­za­ti­ons the Russian govern­ment itself has perse­cu­ted and bloc­ked in Russia. Mail­chimp’s failure to act not only discon­nects these orga­ni­za­ti­ons from the people they serve, it stops them from under­ta­king the email fundrai­sing campaigns they need to keep their opera­ti­ons going.

It’s not just Mail­chimp

Mail­chimp is not the only company helping Putin’s regime repress acti­vists and jour­na­lists. Slack, Sectigo, and many other compa­nies provide essen­tial commu­ni­ca­ti­ons and website secu­rity tools. But when they left Russia, they all bloc­ked Russian accounts indis­cri­mi­na­tely. 

Fortu­na­tely, some compa­nies have rever­sed their deci­si­ons. After we called out Name­cheap, an SSL certi­fi­cate provi­der, for silen­cing Putin regime critics, they chan­ged course, announ­cing they would still provide servi­ces for civil soci­ety actors in Russia and Bela­rus oppo­sing the war in Ukraine. 

U.N. experts to tech compa­nies: protect the people you left behind 

This issue matters for human rights. On July 13, 2022, a group of U.N. human rights experts expres­sed urgent concerns over tech­no­logy compa­nies with­dra­wing from the Russian market, inclu­ding Mary Lawlor, the Special Rappor­teur on the situ­a­tion of human rights defen­ders, Clément Nyalet­sossi Voule, Special Rappor­teur on the rights to free­dom of peace­ful assembly and of asso­ci­a­tion, and Irene Khan, Special Rappor­teur on the right to free­dom of opinion and expres­sion. They warned compa­nies not to take action in response to the war “without neces­sa­rily taking into account the nega­tive impacts on human rights of people left behind.” They also argue against “leaving human rights defen­ders and civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­ti­ons with little access to the infor­ma­tion and commu­ni­ca­tion infras­truc­ture vital for their work, ” and urge busi­nes­ses to “be mind­ful of human rights throug­hout their opera­ti­ons and try to help Russian human rights defen­ders and civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­ti­ons avoid complete isola­tion.”

Action requi­red — now

As it stands, Mail­chimp and other tech compa­nies are igno­ring the U.S. govern­ment, U.N. human rights experts, and digi­tal rights groups with exper­tise in this area. This only helps Putin’s campaign to censor and repress Russian civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­ti­ons and inde­pen­dent media repor­ting on the war in Ukraine. We urge them to uphold their busi­ness and human rights obli­ga­ti­ons and protect Russi­a’s civil soci­ety human rights defen­ders. We won’t back off until they follow through.   

Nata­lia Krapiva, Esq.@naty­nettle