Russian court fines Twitter for failing to delete content amid long-running dispute

A district court in Russia, on May 27, slapped a fine of 19 million Rubles on Twitter, after the microblogging platform failed to delete content deemed illegal by Moscow. Since early this year, the country's media watchdog Roskomnadzor and Twitter have been engaging in a scuffle with the former accusing the social media giant of promoting illegal content including child pornography, drug abuse and information amongst others. As a part of what Moscow termed as a punitive measure for not removing the “banned content”, it has also subjected Twitter to a slowdown since March.

Punitive slowdown

Roskomnadzor earlier this month partially halted the slowdown after Twitter deleted more than 90 per cent of “illegal content”.The federal content regulator said that the posts included 2,336 posts and content related to forms of suicide and incitement of suicide. The regulator added that 352 pieces of content featuring “pornographic images of minors” and 174 posts related to the production and use of drugs were also included. Further, the Russian officials informed that social network and owners of online platforms can be fined under the country’s law for failing to delete illegal content and “prohibited information”. 

However, the Jack Dorsey led platform has denied its use for the promotion of illegal behaviour asserting that it has a zero-tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation and prohibits the promotion of suicide or self-harm. Meanwhile, in the latest episode, Tagansky District Court fined Twitter for six different administrative offences. The total fine amounts to 19 million rubles. It is imperative to note that Twitter was fined 8.9 million last month.

On May 26, Milos Vagner, the deputy head of the Roskomnadzor, announced that all foreign social networks have until July 1 to localize Russian users’ data on servers located inside Russia. In February 2020, Facebook and Twitter were fined four million each for refusing to localize Russian users’ data. While Facebook paid the fine, Twitter challenged the ruling.  Russia, earlier this year, also warned foreign media platforms of meddling with its domestic affairs, following which it ramped up pressure on the forums.

Image: AP