Site icon News Bit

Facebook, Alphabet poised for bigger fines over Russia content

Companies that refuse to delete content judged to be illegal in Russia could soon face amends of 5% to 20% of their annual local revenue, Roskomnadzor, the federal communications watchdog, said in an email Monday. 

“For a number of companies that have systematically refused to comply with the agency’s legal demands, the issue of fines on revenue is being considered in the near future,” the press service said. It will also consider other means of enforcement, it said. 

Russia has ratcheted up pressure on foreign technology companies amid a broader crackdown on anti-Kremlin opposition this year. Last week, Apple Inc. and Alphabet’s Google bowed to pressure to remove an app, called Smart Voting, designed to help protesters vote out ruling party politicians, after authorities accused them of meddling in parliamentary elections. 

The government has moved aggressively to curb access to information since the arrest of opposition leader Alexey Navalny in January following his return to Russia. Many independent media outlets have been tagged “foreign agents” and forced to close or conform to onerous reporting requirements. 

While the election has served as a catalyst for recent crackdowns, the government’s recent measures are a continuation of a yearslong effort to restrict the online access to information in the country.

A series of laws and regulations introduced between 2018 and 2019 expanded Russian authorities’ ability to filter internet content automatically, according to Human Rights Watch. The government required internet service providers to install equipment that can block websites, and it has also sought to restrict citizens’ access to virtual private networks, tools that are used to circumvent censorship and protect anonymity online.

In March, President Vladimir Putin said in a speech that “society will collapse from the inside” unless the internet obeyed “not just the laws of formal, legal rules, but also the moral laws of the society in which we live.” Meanwhile, Russian courts have this year repeatedly issued fines to foreign technology companies for not removing content. 

Facebook has been charged 66 million rubles ($900,000) so far this year, Twitter 38.4 million rubles and Google 26 million rubles, according to Roskomnadzor. 

Russia’s demands to remove content from Google websites have rapidly increased in recent years. According to Google’s transparency reports, in 2015 the company received requests to remove fewer than 5,000 items from its websites. By 2020, that number had spiked to more than 340,000.

Both Google and Apple have also been fined for other violations. In April, Russian authorities ordered Apple to pay $12 million for allegedly breaking monopoly laws. Meanwhile, in July Google was ordered to pay a fine of 3 million rubles for refusing to store Russians’ personal data on servers in the country. LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft Corp., has been blocked in Russia since 2016 for refusing to store user data locally.

Twitter was previously hit with measures that made it slow to load for failing to delete content, while Roskomnadzor this month blocked access to six virtual private network providers, including some of the world’s most popular such services, for allowing access to “prohibited” information and resources. 

Prior to parliamentary elections this month, pressure on U.S. tech companies significantly escalated. In August, Google and Apple were ordered to remove the Smart Voting app from their app stores, which they did last week. A person close to Google said officials threatened to imprison its local employees, if it didn’t do so. Google and Russian search engine Yandex were separately ordered to blacklist the phrase “smart voting” in search results, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

Amid the crackdown, Putin’s ruling party maintained a parliamentary majority of more than two-thirds in last weekend’s elections, in which opponents alleged widespread fraud. Navalny’s political organization was labeled extremist and disbanded, while many of his allies have fled the country amid the threat of criminal prosecution. 

Roman Borisovich, a former Russian insurance executive who helped finance Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said he expects the situation will continue to spiral as Russian authorities exert more control over foreign technology companies. 

“They may have to close down their business in Russia or move people out of the country,” he said. “The regime is not going to return to semi-democratic process of cooperating with the opposition. It’s an all-out war.”

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters

* Enter a valid email

* Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint.
Download
our App Now!!

For all the latest Technology News Click Here 

 For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! NewsBit.us is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – abuse@newsbit.us. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
Exit mobile version