Russia's censors have taken legal action against Google and Meta

Russia's Roskomnadzor censors have taken legal action against the US Internet companies Google and Meta, which could lead to the imposition of fines derived from the revenues of these companies. Roskomnadzor threatened both companies with such fines already in November, due to the fact that companies repeatedly do not remove illegal content from their platforms. Reuters reports. Russian law allows companies to impose fines of five to ten percent of annual sales for repeated violations of the rules. A court hearing in Google and Meta should take place December 24. The largest internet search engine Google has already paid over 32 million rubles in fines in Russia this year. The operator of the social network Facebook also received several fines for not removing illegal content in Russia this year. Until recently, it was named the same, now it uses the name Meta Platforms. However, fines derived from sales could be significantly higher. Facebook, for example, has a turnover of around 12 billion rubles in Russia, so the fine could amount to 1.2 billion rubles, the newspaper Vedomosti said last month. According to the SPARK corporate database, Google's sales in Russia last year reached 85.5 billion rubles. In recent months, Moscow has taken steps to regulate and limit the influence of social media and large technology companies. It fines Russia for not removing illegal content from web platforms, but also tries to get foreign technology companies to open offices in Russia.