US Tech Giants to Pay $2 Mill in Fines in Russia for Not Deleting Banned Content

The Russian Federal Service for Supervision in Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) published in a post on its Telegram channel on Monday companies that failed to abide its content deletion requests, outlining at the same time the penalties handed down to them.

Russia’s parliament passed last year a bill that mandated large social networks to actively search for and identify prohibited content and to restrict access to it without waiting for Roskomnadzor’s order.

In its latest post, Roskomnadzor outlined the companies and the fines they were issued, among which are US-based tech giants Facebook ($998,000),Google ($458,000) and Twitter ($542,000) as well as Chinese video-sharing app TikTok ($58,000).

Russia’s media watchdog has revealed that so far this year, it has fined seven internet giants a combined total of $2.6 million for refusing to remove prohibited information and abide to deletion orders.

Roskomnadzor files deletion demands whenever prohibited content is discovered online, issuing fines or even total ban – depending on the circumstances – to any company that refuses to comply with its orders but many of the companies are yet to pay fines already levied against them despite facing further penalties.

Google is one of the latest ‘shining’ examples that were threatened by Roskomnadzor with fine of up to 20% of its annual Russian turnover for failing to pay the $458,000 it already owes.

Google’s refusal also prompted the State Duma to threaten to increase penalties for IT companies if they continue to ignore the injunctions of Roskomnadzor.

Russian Federal Bailiffs Service (FSSP) initiated in mid-October a procedure of enforced collection of about $336,000 in fines against Facebook, which did not take advantage of the postponement granted by the Russian courts and did not pay the previously issued fine.

Roskomnadzor warned the tech giant at the end of September that it is facing a fine in the amount of a tenth of its revenue in Russia that could amount to12 billion rubles.