PRESS: Watchdog wants Twitter, Google, Facebook fined heavily

MOSCOW, May 5 (PRIME) -- The Russian communications service is seeking to fine Twitter 24 million rubles more for a refusal to delete banned information and Google and Facebook can be punished with 20 million rubles each, business daily Kommersant reported on Wednesday on its website, citing the authority’s protocols submitted to a Moscow court.

“The court received six protocols regarding Twitter…Under each of the protocols, the company can be fined up to 4 million rubles, or 24 million rubles in total,” the court said.

The watchdog received five protocols against Google and Facebook.

In April, the court punished Twitter with 8.9 million rubles for a refusal to erase calls to teenagers to take part in unauthorized rallies. Domestic social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki were fined 1.5 million rubles and 4 million rubles, respectively, and Chinese video-sharing network TikTok 2.6 million rubles.

(75.2567 rubles – U.S. $1)

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