Russian justice fines Meta Platforms and Google

Google and Facebook's parent company were fined 87 million and 23 million euros respectively by the Russian courts.

Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV AFP / Archivos

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1 min

The digital giants are in the sights of Russian justice.

Google and Meta Platforms, Facebook's parent company, were fined 87 million and 23 million euros, respectively.

The reason: they kept content deemed illegal, including research results linked to the opposition to the government in place, available to Internet users.

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Unprecedented court decisions in terms of their amount, but which are part of the Kremlin's desire to strengthen its control of the Russian internet.

This will of the authorities is not reflected only in the distribution of fines.

Last September for example, just before the general elections,

forced the withdrawal of the mobile application of the main opponent of Vladimir Putin, Alexeï Navalny.

For that, Moscow accused Apple and Google of electoral interference.

And the authorities went so far as to threaten the employees of these groups present on Russian soil with imprisonment.

The fear of an underground Russian internet

Beyond search engines and applications, websites of opponents are censored because they are accused

.

And even when their supporters try to get around these blockages, they find it very difficult.

Russia has cut six “virtual private networks”, VPNs, a kind of tool allowing access to the foreign Internet network and thus bypassing local bans.

So where is Russia heading?

Some NGOs fear that the Russian web is going underground.

That is to say isolated from other countries, as is currently the case in China.

For the moment, the Russian authorities firmly deny the project of this internet completely under control.

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