The court imposed a fine of 1.9 billion rubles on Meta

Following Google, Meta (former Facebook) received a turnover fine today — the court ordered it to pay 1.9 billion rubles for repeated failure to remove information prohibited in Russia.

The decision on a large fine for the owner of the social networks Facebook and Instagram was made by the justice of the peace of the court district No. 422 of the Tagansky district of Moscow. Meta was fined 1.9 billion rubles. The fine was imposed under Part 5 of Art. 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (repeated non-deletion of prohibited information). It involves a fine of 5 to 10% of revenue.

This is the second turnover fine for US tech giants in a day. A few hours before the decision on Meta, the court imposed a large fine on Google under the same article - the corporation would have to pay 7.2 billion rubles. This was the first case of a turnover fine against the company.

Roskomnadzor noted that both Facebook and Google "ignored numerous demands of Roskomnadzor" and refused to remove materials "inciting religious hatred", "promoting an indifferent attitude towards the life and health of minors" and "propagating the views and ideology of extremist and terrorist organizations." The agency pointed out that the current turnover fine was imposed on only a small part of the array of content that violates Russian law, and corporations face new turnover fines.

From the release of Roskomnadzor At the moment, more than 2 thousand materials on Facebook and Instagram remain undeleted. <...> The presence of the mentioned unremoved illegal materials <...> provides for the re-engagement of these companies under Part 5 of Art. 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation with the imposition of turnover fines.