MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. The Tagansky Court of Moscow upheld the decision of a justice of the peace to fine Twitter 3 million rubles ($39,588) for the refusal to remove banned content, an official with the court’s press service told TASS.
"The Tagansky court upheld the decision of the justice of the peace of Court Section No. 422 of the Tagansky District of Moscow dated December 27, 2021 on finding Twitter guilty of committing an administrative offense under Part 2, Art. 13.41 of the Russian Administrative Offense Code ("Failure of website owner to remove information if legislation of the Russian Federation provides for responsibility to remove such information") and imposing a fine of 3 mln rubles," the press service said.
According to Deputy Head of the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media Vadim Subbotin, Google, Facebook and Twitter have not deleted around 5,500 files with banned information, facing a fine totally worth over 140 mln rubles ($1.8 mln) as of today. The issue is about information about extremist files, as well as files that may stoke social or religious tensions, files with glorification of terrorists, the propaganda of drugs and other banned files.
The watchdog assumes measures on slowing Twitter traffic and imposes fines via court due to this, Subbotin said, adding that, particularly, a turnover-based fine will be imposed on Facebook (Meta Platforms) for the first time due to the failure to delete banned information on a systematic basis.