Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russiaʼs Tatarstan that recruited young foreign women to make drones for Russiaʼs war in Ukraine.
The Associated Press writes about it.
The posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were removed after an Associated Press investigation published on October 10 detailed working conditions at the Alabuga drone factory, which is under US and UK sanctions.
In videos and other posts on social media, young women, mostly from Africa, were promised a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month after they were hired by the “Start in Alabuga” program.
But instead of an internship program in areas such as the hotel and restaurant business and catering, some of the women only learned after arriving in Tatarstan that they would be working at a weapons factory, assembling thousands of Iranian attack drones to be launched across Ukraine.
In interviews with the AP, some of the women who worked at the complex complained of long hours under constant supervision, broken promises about wages and training courses, and working with caustic chemicals.
The tech companies also deleted the accounts of the Alabuga Polytechnic Technical School, a professional boarding lyceum for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22, which positions its graduates as experts in the production of unmanned aerial vehicles.
These accounts had at least 158 344 followers, and one TikTok page had more than a million likes.
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