Russian courts heard 49 cases in 2022 for disclosing “prohibited information” online and imposed fines of 21,120 million rubles (€233.7 million), official Russian judicial statistics show this Sunday.
Among the companies with the most fines is Google, the owner of YouTube, which has 18 lawsuits, according to the Legal Department of Russia’s Supreme Court.
In addition, fines were imposed on Meta, branded as “extremist” in Russia, for allowing anti-Russian hate publications after the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, as well as on Wikipedia, Twitter and Twitch.
According to the deputy head of Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications regulator Vadim Subbotin, Google, Facebook and Twitter refused to remove about 5,500 publications with information prohibited in Russia.
Last year, about 130 cases of this kind got into the archive, of which 49 were investigated, three were rejected, and two were sent for “correction” of the protocols and returned to the courts.
Decisions were made in 42 cases, of which 40 concerned legal entities, and the rest – officials.
In four cases, the courts limited themselves to a warning, and in the remaining 38 fines were imposed.
Of the total amount of fines, the Russian judicial system received 1,508 million rubles (16.68 million euros).
In December 2020, Russia passed a law imposing administrative liability on companies that publish prohibited information such as child pornography, instructions for making explosives, requests for protests from the opposition, and most recently about the activities of the Russian army in Ukraine.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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