Russian Court Fines Facebook, Twitter And TikTok, Here's Their Reason!

A Russian court applies a harsh sentence to Big Tech from the US. (photo credit: pixabay)

JAKARTA – A Russian court fined Twitter, the owner of Facebook Meta Platforms and TikTok on Thursday, December 16 for failing to remove content deemed illegal by the Russian government. This statement comes from sources in a Moscow court, as the latest in a series of convictions against foreign technology companies.

Moscow has stepped up pressure on Big Tech this year in a campaign that critics have characterized as an attempt by Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the internet, something they say threatens and cripples individual and corporate freedoms.

Moscow's Tagansky District Court said Meta Platform had been fined a total of 13 million rubles (IDR 2.5 billion) in three separate administrative cases for not removing content. Twitter was fined 10 million rubles (IDR 1.9 billion) in two cases, while TikTok received a 4 million ruble (IDR 778 million) penalty, according to Russian news agencies as quoted by Reuters.

Twitter, Facebook and TikTok themselves did not immediately comment on the fines they received from Russia.

Meta, along with Alphabet's Google, faced a court case later this month for alleged repeated violations of Russian content laws and could be fined a percentage of its annual revenue in Russia.

Communications regulator Roskomnadzor said Russia had slowed Twitter's speed since March as a punitive measure for posts containing child pornography, drug abuse information or calls for minors to commit suicide.

Twitter, on the other hand, has denied allowing its platform to be used to promote the alleged illegal behavior.

Moscow is also suing 13 foreign technology companies and mostly US ones that were founded in Russia on January 1 or face possible restrictions or outright bans. All three companies were fined last Thursday and are on the list.