MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court fined Alphabet’s Google on Wednesday 4.6 billion roubles ($50.84 million) for failing to delete so-called “fake” information about the conflict in Ukraine and other topics, the TASS news agency reported.
Russia has been at loggerheads with foreign technology companies over content, censorship, data and local representation in a simmering dispute that intensified after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The RIA news agency said the fine had also been imposed due to Google failing to remove “extremist content” and the distribution of what Russia calls “LGBT propaganda”.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russia calls the conflict in Ukraine a “special military operation”. Russia’s Supreme Court ruled in November that LGBT activists should be designated as “extremists” in a move that representatives of gay and transgender people fear will lead to arrests and prosecutions.
Alphabet’s YouTube has been a particular target of the Russian state’s ire but, unlike Twitter and Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram, it has not been blocked. The fine was calculated as a share of Google’s annual turnover in Russia. The company was handed similar turnover-based penalties of 7.2 billion roubles in late 2021 and 21.1 billion roubles in August 2022.
($1 = 90.4825 roubles)
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow, Alexander Marrow; additional reporting by Filipp Lebedev; editing by Andrew Heavens and Jason Neely)
