1. The verdict comes 14 days after Russian media watchdog warned to block the micro-blogging site within a month if it fails to remove the banned content.
2. The court was set to consider three more protocols that the Russian media watchdog had filed against Facebook.
Twitter last month announced to establish a legal entity in Turkey to continue operating there under the country's internet law that came into place last year. (Photo: Twitter)
A Russian court on Friday fined Twitter $116,778 for not taking down calls encouraging minors to take part in illegal protests, the latest in a series of actions against the micro-blogging site platform that has been used to amplify the dissatisfaction in the region.
As per a story on Xinhua news agency, part of the content in question urged minors to take part in illegal protests, promoted drug use and spread child pornography.
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Moscow’s Tagansky District Court ordered the US-based firm to pay a total of 8.9 million rubles in fines ($116,778) for refusing to delete tweets urging minors to join an unauthorised and illegitimate event, Russia’s TASS News Agency said. In addition to this, the court has given 60 days to the firm to pay the fine from the day the ruling comes into force.
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The court was set to consider three more protocols that the Russian media watchdog had filed against Facebook. The consideration of three similar protocols against Google has been postponed to May 4.
The verdict comes 14 days after Russian media watchdog warned to block the micro-blogging site within a month if it fails to remove the banned content.
Twitter last month announced to establish a legal entity in Turkey to continue operating there under the country’s internet law that came into place last year.
“We will continue to work to protect the public conversation in Turkey, empowering people to have access to that conversation, and advocating for our values,” the micro-blogging platform added.
India has also raised similar demands from Twitter to keep its platform sanitised for meaningful conversations and remove bad accounts.
The Indian government in February announced new stringent guidelines for social media platforms along with code of ethics for over-the-top (OTT) platforms and digital media.
The social media platforms will be classified under two categories — social media intermediaries and significant social media intermediaries — with the latter being subject to greater obligations.
The new Intermediary Liability Rules ask social media companies with over 5 million users in India to not only enable traceability of end-to-end encrypted messages but also establish local offices with senior officials to deal with law enforcement and user grievances.
Intermediaries will have to appoint a Grievance Officer to deal with such complaints and share the name and contact details of such officer in India.
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