Wikimedia Foundation Inc. fined 2 mln rubles over refusal to remove fake info about special operation in Ukraine - court

MOSCOW. Nov 1 (Interfax) - A magistrates' court in Moscow's Tagansky district imposed an administrative fine of 2 million rubles on the U.S.-based Wikimedia Foundation Inc. over its failure to remove prohibited information, an Interfax correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"To find Wikimedia Foundation Inc. guilty of an administrative offense and impose a fine of 2 million rubles," the judge said.

The foundation was found guilty of failure to remove content prohibited in Russia.

The court said the motion was based on the failure to remove two Wikipedia articles containing false information about the special operation in Ukraine.

Earlier, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) said earlier that coercive measures were taken against Wikimedia Foundation Inc. over failing to comply with the obligation to remove prohibited information: search engines informed users that the company was breaking Russian laws.

Similar coercive measures apply to Twitch Interactive, Inc., which refuses to remove prohibited materials.

According to Roskomnadzor, the measures will be in effect until both companies fully stop violating Russian laws.

Since the beginning of 2021, the refusal to take down illegal content in Russia have led to fines on web services such as Google, Telegram, Facebook, which is owned by an organization banned in Russia, Twitter, and TikTok. In total, all these foreign companies have been fined more than 200 million rubles.

In addition, the repeat violations of Russian legislation by Meta, which is declared extremist and prohibited in Russia, and Google have resulted in them paying turnover-based fines, including almost 2 billion rubles by Meta and more than 28.9 billion rubles by Google.