TikTok facing fine of up to 4 mln rubles over refusal to remove content banned in Russia - court

MOSCOW. Aug 17 (Interfax) - A magistrates court in Moscow's Tagansky District will hear an administrative offense motion against TikTok Pte. Ltd. before the end of August; the company is charged with the refusal to remove content banned in Russia.

"The court has received a motion regarding an administrative offense by TikTok Pte. Ltd. as defined by Part 2 Article 13.41 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses (the failure to remove information banned in Russia). The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:15 a.m. on August 30," the court told Interfax.

If found in violation of the Russian law, TikTok will be facing a fine of up to 4 million rubles.

The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) filed the motion with the court.

The largest Internet services, such as Google, Telegram, Facebook (an information resource of a company banned in Russia), Twitter and TikTok, have been fined since the beginning of last year for the refusal to remove content banned in Russia. The fines imposed on all these companies exceed 200 million rubles in total.

Meanwhile, turnover-based fines were levied on the Meta company (designated extremist and banned in Russia) and Google in the amount of 5% of their 2020 revenue for repeat violations of Russian laws. The court fined Meta almost 2 billion rubles, while Google was fined over 28.9 billion rubles.