Google faces an ultimatum in Russia. Per Reuters, the country’s Roskomnadzor internet commission gave the company 24 hours to delete more than 26,000 instances of what it’s classifying as illegal content.
The watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said it had sent more than 26,000 calls to Google to remove illegal information, including videos containing information on drugs or violence and material from what it called extremist organisations. Google will be fined between 800,000 roubles and 4 million roubles ($10,800-$54,000) if it does not restrict access to the banned information, Roskomnadzor said.
Russia’s communications watchdog on Monday gave Google 24 hours to delete what it called prohibited content or be fined and said Moscow could eventually slow down the company’s traffic in the country.
Russia has already placed a punitive slowdown on U.S. social network Twitter for not deleting banned content, part of a push by Moscow to rein in Western tech giants and beef up what it calls its internet “sovereignty”. The watchdog, Roskomnadzor, said it had sent more than 26,000 calls to Google to remove illegal information, including videos containing information on drugs or violence and material from what it called extremist organisations.
Google will be fined between 800,000 roubles and 4 million roubles ($10,800-$54,000) if it does not restrict access to the banned information, Roskomnadzor said. A repeat offence would be punishable by a fine of up to 10% of the company’s total annual revenue, it said.
This isn’t the first time Russia has threatened action like this against a Western tech company. In March, the country throttled Twitter for not removing banned content quickly enough. Before the company complied with the order, Roskomnadzor threatened to block the platform entirely. At the time, the agency said it could implement similar sanctions on Facebook, Google and YouTube for many of the same reasons. It’s unclear if Google will comply with the order as Twitter did. Court documents seen by Reuters show the company sued Roskomnadzor over 12 YouTube videos the agency ordered it to delist. Those clips involve prominent Putin critic Alexei Navalny. Navalny and his supporters have frequently used YouTube to accuse President Putin of corruption and call for protests against the Kremlin.
