Russia fines Google, Meta record $125 mn over banned content

 

Failure to remove content banned in Russia is getting more costly for foreign tech platforms, with Google getting slapped with a fine of nearly $100 million.

A Moscow court on Friday slapped Google with an unprecedented fine of nearly $100 million, while Meta (formerly Facebook) received a fine of $27 million. In recent years Russia has been piling pressure on Western social media giants, with President Vladimir Putin saying those companies were becoming as influential as elected governments. 

Moscow has repeatedly taken legal action against them for allegedly not moderating their content properly and interfering in the country's affairs.

But so far fines on Facebook parent company Meta and Google have stretched into the tens of millions of rubles, not billions.

However on Friday a Moscow court fined Google a record 7.2 billion rubles ($98 million), while Meta (formerly Facebook) received a fine of 1.9 billion rubles ($27 million) for repeatedly failing to delete illegal content. continue reading.....