September 30, 2021

By Gleb Stolyarov and Alexander Marrow

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian authorities on Thursday warned social media big Facebook it faces a fine of up to 10% of its once-a-year turnover in the state except if it fails to delete information Moscow deems illegal.

Upping the ante in its standoff with U.S. Huge Tech, state communications regulator Roskomnadzor told Reuters it was organizing to mail Facebook’s reps in Russia an formal notification stating it experienced repeatedly unsuccessful to remove banned information.

That, it mentioned, could guide to a great of 5% or 10% of Facebook’s yearly Russian turnover except if the condition is remedied.

Facebook’s violations contain failing to remove posts made up of baby pornography, drug abuse and extremist information, the Vedomosti daily described independently.

Facebook experienced no rapid remark.

Moscow has greater pressure on overseas tech firms around the last calendar year as part of a long-managing thrust to assert bigger sovereignty in excess of its segment of the net, which include attempts to make companies store Russians’ individual facts on its territory.

On Wednesday, Russia threatened to block YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc., immediately after the movie-internet hosting big taken off Russian point out-backed broadcaster RT’s German-language channels from its site.

Earlier this 12 months, Roskomnadzor wrote to Facebook and other social media firms demanding they take out posts that contains phone calls for minors to take part in anti-government protests just after the arrest of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Vedomosti cited authorities who approximated Facebook’s annual Russian turnover at all around 12 billion roubles ($165 million).

Reuters could not instantly verify that estimate.

Roskomnadzor has opened 17 distinct administrative circumstances from Facebook this year for failing to delete banned content, courtroom paperwork showed, with 64 million roubles owed in fines or pending.

A turnover high-quality would dwarf these levied so far.

“Facebook’s administration has not compensated the fines,” Vedomosti cited Roskomnadzor as declaring.

($1 = 72.5975 roubles)

(Modifying by Barbara Lewis, Elaine Hardcastle, Kirsten Donovan)