Again! Russia Fines Meta Platform Inc., This Time For Banned LGBT Content

Meta Platforms Inc, accused by Russia of doing LGTB propaganda. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA – The Russian court on Tuesday, April 26 again fined Meta Platforms Inc. 4 million rubles (IDR 782 million) for failing to remove posts containing what they called "LGBT propaganda". The court's ruling was reported by the Russian news agency, Interfax.

A 2013 Russian law, condemned by Western countries as state-imposed bigotry, has banned "the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to minors". Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this latest fine.

This is not the only time Russia has imposed fines on technology and social media companies from the United States. Previously, a Russian court had also fined Alphabet Inc's Google. of 11 million rubles (IDR 1.98 billion).

According to a report by the TASS news agency, they were deemed to have failed to comply with demands by the Russian government to remove what they described as "false" information about the conflict in Ukraine and YouTube videos produced by right-wing Ukrainian groups.

Russia's communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said earlier in March that it was taking steps to punish Google for "spreading false information" on YouTube. They had previously warned the US company that they would be fined if they failed to comply with the order. Russia's action is part of a wider battle with foreign technology companies and the media to control the flow of information.

The Tagansky District Court of Moscow, meanwhile, also convicted Google, which was found guilty of administrative offenses and fined 4 million rubles (IDR 710 million) and 7 million rubles (IDR 1.2 billion) in two cases.

The TASS news agency said the fine relates to what Moscow considers to be the distribution of inaccurate data on Russian troop losses and civilian casualties in Ukraine. There is also the distribution of video clips on YouTube produced by right-wing Ukrainian groups such as the Azov nationalist battalion.

A court in Moscow, Russia, fined Google and Meta Platforms Inc for repeatedly failing to remove content deemed illegal in that country.

Google was fined 7.2 billion rubles, while Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook Inc, was 2 billion rubles.

Roskomnadzor has also accused Facebook and Instagram of failing to remove two thousand content that violates the rules there, while Google's 2.600 content.