Russia Punishes 5 Foreign IT Companies

Russia's state communications regulator said it will take punitive action against 5 foreign IT companies for violating online content laws that may require search engines to include disclaimers for violations.

The regulator, Roskomnadzor, said yesterday, Friday, that it will impose measures against TikTok, a subsidiary of ByteDance, the messaging service Telegram, the Zoom application, the Discord chatting tool. ), and Pinterest.

Roskomnadzor said - in a statement - that the measures came in response to the companies' failure to remove content they indicated as illegal, and these measures will remain in effect until they comply. None of the companies responded to Reuters' written requests for comment.

Roskomnadzor did not specify precisely what measures would be taken. Yandex, the dominant search engine in Russia, is already putting up a disclaimer note on some other sites, to which "Roskomnadzor responded: a site that violates Russian law."

Roskomnadzor said it "decided to implement practical measures to inform Internet users through search engines of companies' violations of Russian legislation."

Russia has fined many technology companies - mostly foreign - for not removing content it considers illegal. Besides, the sites have also warned against violating a law issued in early March that prohibits "defaming" the armed forces, and threatened penalties of up to 15 years.

Last Tuesday, Russian courts fined Amazon’s Twitch streaming service two million Rubles (about $34,000) and Telegram 11 million Rubles (about $185,000) for hosting content that Moscow said contained "fake information" related to events in Ukraine.