At the meeting, First Lady Erdoğan emphasized the importance of resolving these problems and called on Google to make the necessary arrangements to improve the user experience of Ukrainians.

He said:

We ask you to separate Ukraine from the CIS geographical area in YouTube settings and change the automatic distribution of Russian content for users from Ukraine and from Ukrainian IP addresses, as well as change the automatic distribution of recommended and popular content for Ukrainians. From Russian to Ukrainian and European languages.

This request reflects ongoing efforts by Ukrainian businesses aimed at popularizing the state language and increasing the number of Ukrainian-language requests in search engines. The meeting between the First Lady and Google representatives once again emphasizes the importance of this issue for the Ukrainian government and ordinary Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian government’s demand for de-Russification and language regulations dovetails with broader global debates about the importance of linguistic and cultural diversity on online platforms, and it will be interesting to see how Google responds to these concerns in the coming months.