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MOSCOW—Russia on Tuesday fined TikTok for failing to remove content that violated Russian laws on “LGBT propaganda,” and the streaming service Twitch hosted a video interview with a Ukrainian politician. fined it for stating it contained “false” information.
Neither company immediately responded to Reuters’ requests for comment. Interfax reported that his TikTok rep in court insisted on closing the proceedings without divulging further details.
The fine marks the latest step in a long-running dispute with Moscow’s Big Tech, with content penalties, data storage demands and some outright bans.
Tagansky District Court in Moscow said it had fined TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based IT firm ByteDance, 3 million rubles ($51,000).
News outlets say the lawsuit against TikTok is based on accusations that the company “promotes distorted representations of non-traditional values, LGBT, feminism, and traditional sexual values” on its platform. reported that there is
Amazon-owned Twitch was fined four million rubles ($68,000), the court said. The lawsuit was drafted in response to Twitch hosting an interview with Oleksiy Arrestovich and acting as an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to news outlets.
Earlier this year, Twitch was fined 3 million rubles for hosting another interview with Arestovych.
In early March, shortly after sending tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine, Russia passed a law banning “discriminating” its troops, handing down sentences of up to 15 years. You have been warned not to violate that law.
TASS reported Tuesday that Twitch faces two new fines of up to eight million rubles for failing to remove information Russia deems unreliable about the course of a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Russian “LGBT Propaganda” Law
Russia is considering expanding an existing “gay propaganda” law passed in 2013. The law prohibits individuals or entities from promoting homosexual relationships with children. Lawmakers say the law should be expanded to include adults and fines should be increased for exposing minors to “LGBT propaganda.”
Russian officials say they are defending morality in the face of the anti-Russian liberal values promoted by the West.
Separately, the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is also facing a fine of 4 million rubles for failing to remove “fakes” about the Russian military, the RIA reported.
($1 = 58.8000 rubles)
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