Russia fines Google, Facebook for not deleting banned content

Google and Facebook were fined in Russia by the government for not deleting banned content from their platforms. Russia's communications watchdog Roskomnadzor had given Google twenty-four hours to delete the prohibited content. Twitter has already faced the wrath of the Russian government for not deleting banned content.

As per Reuters, Facebook was fined RUB 26 million (roughly Rs. 2.57 crores) while Google was asked to pay a total of RUB 6 million (roughly Rs. 59.42 crores). The Russian court has reportedly issued three separate fines of 2 million rubles.

Google was given an ultimatum by the Russian watchdog Roskomnadzor to delete more than 26,000 online media which was deemed illegal in the country. The watchdog threatened to slow down Google’s services in Russia if the demand were not met and levy fines up to 10 per cent of the company's annual revenue. "Roskomnadzor sent more than 26 thousand notifications to the Google administration about the need to delete illegal information. If, after notifying Roskomnadzor, the Internet platform does not restrict access to prohibited information within 24 hours, it will be fined 800 thousand to 4 million rubles. In case of a repeated offense, the amount of the fine will be increased to one tenth of the total amount of the company's annual revenue,” the press service department of Russian Federation told the TASS.

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Google does not fully fulfill its obligation to exclude links to Internet resources with information prohibited in our country from search results in Russia. On average, from 20% to 30% of links to content prohibited in Russia are not removed from search results, including websites of terrorist and extremist organizations, websites with pornographic images of minors, as well as online stores selling drugs, “ the press service department of Russian Federation told the TASS.

The department informed that Twitter removed 91% of the prohibited information at the behest of watchdog Roskomnadzor, but Google still has a large amount of unreleased illegal content that can harm the Russian users. The report further elaborated that the unremoved content that is still hosting on the social media platforms include videos of cultivation of drugs, cruel animal killings, videos inciting violence, videos of terror groups justifying their actions and more.