American Express, TikTok, Netflix suspend operations in Russia amid sanctions after Ukraine invasion

MOSCOW -- Netflix and TikTok suspended most of their services in Russia on Sunday as the government cracks down on what people and media outlets can say about Russia's war in Ukraine.

American Express also announced it would suspend operations in Russia, as well as in Russian-allied Belarus.


The decision comes after Visa and Mastercard decided to do the same.
TikTok said Russian users would not be able to post new videos or see videos shared from elsewhere in the world.

TikTok spokesperson Hilary McQuaide said the TikTok app in Russia now appears in "view-only" mode and won't let people post or see new videos or livestreams. They can still see older videos, but not if they came from outside the country, she said.

The company blamed Moscow's new "fake news" law, which makes it illegal, among other things, to describe the fighting as an invasion.

"In light of Russia's new 'fake news' law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law," TikTok said in a statement on Twitter. "Our in-app messaging service will not be affected."

Netflix didn't specify a reason for suspending services Sunday except to say it reflected "circumstances on the ground." The company had previously said it would refuse to air Russian state TV channels.

Facebook and Twitter have already been blocked in Russia, along with access to the websites of a number of major international media outlets.
TikTok is part of the Chinese tech company ByteDance.


"The safety of employees is our top priority," she said, adding that the video-sharing service - part of China-based tech company ByteDance - didn't want to put either its Russian employees or users at risk of severe criminal penalties. Some protesters who've taken to the streets in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian cities to decry the invasion of Ukraine have used social media platforms to broadcast their cause.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics, a leading supplier of both smartphones and computer chips, said it would halt product shipments to the country, joining other big tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Dell.

And two of the so-called Big Four accounting firms said Sunday they were cutting ties to the country. KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers both they would end their relationships with their Russia-based member firms, each of which employs thousands of people.

Pulling the plug on online entertainment - and information - is likely to further isolate the country and its people after a growing number of multinational businesses have cut off Russia from vital financial services, technology and a variety of consumer products in response to Western economic sanctions and global outrage over the invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, called on U.S. technology companies to do more Sunday to hit back against Russia. He tweeted open letters asking Apple and Google to shut down their app stores in Russia and for Amazon and Microsoft to suspend their cloud computing services.

Providers of internet-based services and apps have been mostly reluctant to take actions that could deprive Russian citizens of social media services and other sources of information.

That changed Friday when Russian President Vladimir Putin intensified a crackdown on media outlets and individuals who fail to hew to the Kremlin line on the war, blocking Facebook and Twitter and signing into law a bill that criminalizes the intentional spreading of what Moscow deems to be "fake" reports.


The new "fake news" legislation, quickly rubber-stamped by both houses of the Kremlin-controlled parliament and signed by Putin, imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years for those spreading information that goes against the Russian government's narrative on the war.

Multiple news outlets have also said they would pause their work inside Russia to evaluate the situation. Russian authorities have repeatedly and falsely decried reports of Russian military setbacks or civilian deaths in Ukraine as "fake" news. State media outlets refer to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a "special military operation" rather than a war or an invasion.

The law envisages sentences of up to three years or fines for spreading what authorities deem to be false news about the military, but the maximum punishment rises to 15 years for cases deemed to have led to "severe consequences."

Russia has become increasingly isolated in the days since the invasion began, closing itself off to outside sources of information as sanctions bite deeply into its economy.

The ruble has plunged in value, and dozens of multinational companies ended or dramatically scaled back their work in the country.

The Associated Press contributed to this post.