Russia fines Google over $170K for "extremist content"

n 2024, Russian courts imposed fines on Google LLC four times, totaling 15.1 million rubles ($172,300), according to the press service of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).

In particular, the company was fined for failing to remove extremist content, false information, materials encouraging unrest, content related to VPN services, and other illegal material on YouTube.

On February 17, Moscow court charged Google 3.8 million rubles ($41,560) for for hosting content on YouTube that included videos instructing Russian soldiers how to surrender, "extremist content and calls for mass riots",- Russia's TASS news agency reported

For several years, Russia has required foreign technology platforms to remove content it considers illegal, including what it describes as 'fake' information about the war in Ukraine. When companies fail to comply, authorities impose small but recurring fines.

Last year, Google won an injunction from London's High Court to prevent the enforcement of Russian judgments against the U.S. tech giant over the closure of various Google and YouTube accounts.

A series of civil judgments from Russia against Google were made during April 2021 and June 2023 related to termination of online services – including use of Gmail accounts and You Tube channels – in response to the imposition of international sanctions. An estimate of the accumulated total of judicial penalties exceeded £1.85 octillion, a number with 36 zeroes – a figure which, was noted at the court as “about 20 trillion times greater than the estimated GDP of all the economies in the world.”

The Kremlin said that Russia’s huge fines imposed on Google were largely symbolic and designed to spur the US tech company into lifting restrictions on Russian YouTube channels.

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