7 Apr 2022 15:55

Court delays until April 26 hearing of administrative offence protocol filed on TikTok over failure to remove banned content

MOSCOW. April 7 (Interfax) - The magistrate's court of the Tagansky District of Moscow has postponed for three weeks the hearing of the administrative offence protocol filed earlier on the social networking website TikTok, accused of the repeated refusal to delete content banned in Russia, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"The court has granted the motion and adjourned the case in order to give the defense time to study the material. The next session is due on April 26, at 11:30 a.m.," the judge said in a ruling.

The penalty for failure to delete banned content may reach up to 4,000,000 rubles as an administrative fine.

The administrative offense protocol was filed against TikTok for a video that the authorities believe contains propaganda favoring non-traditional sexual relationships.

Major internet companies such as Google, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and WhatsApp have been repeatedly held accountable in Russia for failures to remove banned content. The combined amount of fines they have been ordered to pay in Russia since the beginning of this year is now more than 200,000,000 rubles.

Since February 11, the Russian telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor has been filing administrative offense protocols against those social networking platforms that have failed to remove or remove in a timely fashion, content banned in Russia, including calls for underage children to take part in unsanctioned public actions.