Russia seeks extra fines against Twitter over ‘Banned Content’

Russia is seeking an additional 24 million roubles ($321,586) in fines from U.S. tech giant Twitter for failing to remove content banned in Russia. Roskomnadzor State communications regulator said that Twitter was complying with a demand to remove banned content but taking long time for that. A punitive slowdown on the service has been extended until May 15.

Six reports concerning Twitter had been lodged with a Moscow court under Russia’s Administrative Offences Code. Each of the report carries a possible fine of up to 4 million roubles over a failure to remove content. Roskomnadzor, Twitter and the court did not immediately respond to requests for comment and also no date has been set.

Three separate fines against Twitter, totalling 8.9 million roubles had been issued by the court in April for accusations that it had failed to delete banned contents. Roskomnadzor has said it wants Twitter to delete content that contains child pornography, drug abuse information or calls for minors to commit suicide.

In recent months Russia is taking more steps to control over the operations of foreign social media platforms and tech companies. Google, Facebook and other Social Medias are being sued by Russia for allegedly failing to delete posts urging children to take part in illegal protests.