The tightening of regulatory measures against foreign IT giants, such as Meta Platforms (Facebook), in the form of turnover fines is a forced measure on the part of Russia. This opinion was expressed by the first deputy chairman of the Federation Council committee on constitutional legislation, deputy chairman of the Council for the development of the digital economy, Irina Rukavishnikova, in an interview with Izvestia on Friday, December 24.
“We have long been and systematically pushed to this by certain representatives of the international bigtech, who ignored the requirements of Roskomnadzor to remove illegal content,” she stressed.
As the senator noted, previously, IT giants were assigned the usual fixed fines, and then it was about millions of rubles, which is an invisible loss with a multi-billion dollar income. Companies paid fines and continued to violate Russian laws, she said.
“Now, with a turnover fine, that is, the collection of a percentage of the company’s turnover in the Russian market to the budget of the Russian Federation, the amounts are much more serious – this is already billions of rubles, a tangible blow to income,” Rukavishnikova clarified.
She expressed confidence that now the management of Facebook, Google and other multinational IT companies fully understand the need to work “within the framework of Russian legislation.”
Earlier that day, a magistrate court in Moscow ruled to fine Meta Platforms (Facebook) for not deleting information prohibited in the Russian Federation. The amount of the turnover fine was almost 2 billion rubles. Also on Friday, a magistrate court ruled to fine Google 7.2 billion rubles for refusing to remove content.
Roskomnadzor clarified that Facebook and Instagram did not delete more than 2 thousand materials with prohibited information, this threatens with new turnover fines.
On December 16, Meta Platforms imposed another RUB 13 million in fine for refusing to remove prohibited content.
On February 1, a law came into force in Russia, according to which social networks must themselves identify and block prohibited content. In the absence of an opportunity to independently assess the unlawfulness of the content within 24 hours, the administration of the social network must send the data to Roskomnadzor.
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
