Roskomnadzor Sentenced Five Foreign Technology Companies For Failure To Comply With Russian Laws

TikTok, one of the companies penalized by Russia. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - Russia's state communications regulator announced on Friday, August 19 that it is taking punitive action against five foreign IT companies. They are considered to be in violation of online content laws, which may require search engines to include a disclaimer about the violation.

The regulator, Roskomnadzor, said it was taking action against TikTok from ByteDance, messaging service Telegram, Zoom Video Communications, chat tools Discord, and Pinterest.

In a statement, Roskomnadzor said the action was in response to the company's failure to remove content that had been marked as illegal, and would remain in effect until they comply. But so far neither of the companies immediately responded to a Reuters request for comment.

Roskomnadzor did not specify exactly what action would be taken. Russia's dominant Yandex search engine has listed disclaimers for several other websites which read: "Roskomnadzor: website violates Russian law".

"Roskomnadzor has decided to implement enforcement measures, in the form of internet users being informed by search engines about the company's violation of Russian laws," the regulator said, as quoted by Reuters.

Russia has fined several, mostly foreign technology companies for not removing content it deems illegal. They also warned the site against violating a law passed in early March that prohibits "discrediting" the armed forces, with penalties of up to 15 years.

On Tuesday, a Russian court fined Amazon's live streaming unit Twitch 2 million rubles (IDR 504 million) and Telegram 11 million rubles (IDR 2.7 billion) for hosting content that Moscow said contained "false" information about the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian lawmakers in July approved legislation that provides tougher penalties for foreign internet companies, including search engine disclaimers.