First Amazon fine from Russia
A Moscow court imposed a 4 million rubles fine on Amazon for failing to remove prohibited content related to drug use and suicide. This is the first such sanction in Russia for the US tech giant
First fine for the Seattle e-commerce giant from Russia.
The judge of the Tagansky district of Moscow imposed a fine of 4 million rubles (about $ 65,000) on Amazon for failing to remove some prohibited content. The court also fined Twitch, Amazon's streaming service, 8 million rubles for failing to remove banned content.
As Reuters recalls, Twitch has previously been fined for hosting video interviews with Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which Moscow said contained "false" information. On Tuesday, state news agency Tass reported that one of two 4 million rubles sanctions for Twitch involved the airing of a new interview with Arestovych, conducted by a Russian lawyer designated as a "foreign agent".
While this is the first time Amazon has received a fine, Russia has recently fined other foreign tech companies for failing to remove content.
The Russian government has increased the pressure on big technology this year, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A campaign that critics define as an attempt by the Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the Internet, something they believe threatens individual and corporate freedom.
The standoff between Moscow and Google is exemplary : fined for a series of alleged crimes and its Russian branch has declared bankruptcy.
Even last week Rosfinmonitoring, the Russian government agency that monitors financial operations in the country, included Meta – the company that owns Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram – in its list of "terrorist and extremist" organizations declaring it outlawed . According to reports, Meta had allowed posts calling for violence against Russian invaders by users in certain countries such as Ukraine and Poland.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/dalla-russia-prima-multa-per-amazon/ on Wed, 19 Oct 2022 04:41:01 +0000.