MOSCOW, December 8. /TASS/. Moscow‘s Tagansky Court has fined the Telegram messenger service 1 mln rubles ($10,900) for failing to flag and delete from its platform information that is prohibited for dissemination in Russia, the court’s press service told TASS.

"The court has found the Telegram company liable under Article 13.50(2) of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses (failure by a social network owner to carry out monitoring for the purpose of restricting access to information regarding the production of drugs, methods of committing suicide, or materials with pornographic images of underage individuals), and hereby orders that a fine be assessed in the amount of 1 mln rubles," the court ruling said.

The so-called "Self-Control Law" took effect on February 21, 2021. It is contained in Article 6 of the Russian federal law On Information, IT and Information Security. The regulation mandates that social media platforms conduct monitoring and take independent action to delete any prohibited information posted by users on their sites.