Russian regulators issued a warning to the social media giant Facebook on Thursday, stating that if it does not delete what Moscow considers illegal content, the company will face a fine of up to 10% of its annual turnover.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s national communications regulator, stated that it will issue a formal notice to Facebook’s representative in Russia that the company has not deleted prohibited information. If it cannot be corrected, it may be fined 5% or 10% of its annual turnover in Russia.
According to reports, Facebook’s violations include the failure to delete posts containing child pornography, drug abuse, and extremist content. Since last year, Russia has increased its supervision of foreign Internet technology companies, including requiring foreign technology companies to store Russian personal data on local servers in Russia.
On Wednesday, local time, Russia threatened to block YouTube because the German-language channel of Russian state media RT was deleted on the social video platform. Earlier this year, Roskomnadzor wrote to Facebook and other social media, asking them to delete banned content posts on their platforms.
It is said that Facebook’s annual turnover in Russia is approximately 12 billion rubles (US$165 million). However, this figure has not been confirmed by the authority. The litigation documents show that Roskomnadzor has filed 17 different administrative lawsuits against Facebook this year because the social media platform failed to delete prohibited content.
Among these administrative cases, including a fine of 64 million rubles imposed on Facebook, some cases are still pending. Penalties based on turnover mean that Facebook’s penalties will be increased. In response to the fine imposed by Facebook in Russia, Roskomnadzor said, Facebook has not paid the fine.
