Saturday, May 20, 2023

WhatsApp Gets Heavily Fined By Russian Authorities For Failing To Remove Banned Content

Meta is not going to be happy with the recent reports of its leading global texting platform getting a massive fine by Russian officials.

WhatsApp is being punished heavily with the imposition of a huge fine that comprises RUB 4 million after authorities in the country accused the firm of not removing content that was banned. This was confirmed by the Russian top media outlet RIA which cited documents from a court filing in Moscow.

This past year, Meta was called out by Russian authorities as a firm that was banned because it felt the company supported extremist behavior and activities. But despite those harsh calls, we never saw any form of ban or threats come forward with legal activity as it failed to get rid of data that had been prohibited.

This particular RIA report failed to specify which data was being collected by the app and it also failed to outline which form of banned data was being deleted as well.

All we do know is that it’s an administrative case that had been filed by a leading regulator in Russia.

When the war against Ukraine broke out, we saw Russia setting forth some very severe strategies in the world of media and publishing that included harsh regulations for the likes of censorship. And so many firms like Google, Wikipedia, and more had been involved.

Then during the month’s start, we saw how the court in Russia was filing Google for not removing video posts on YouTube that it felt were strongly promoting the concept of LGBT and fake data related to Russia’s military campaign.

Then in the month of April, we saw Russian officials target Wikimedia who happened to be the owner of various kinds of encyclopedias that it failed at removing content that was extremist in nature as Moscow tried to crack down against links that were putting out new data sources.

While some feel the various fines set forward might be overturned, we’re not quite sure that would be the case against WhatsApp. As days go by, the figure of cases continues to increase, and provided the huge number of articles seen on platforms like Wikipedia about the war Russia began, it’s not going to stop anytime soon.

In the month of July 2022, another court in the country’s capital was seen putting out a major fine of RUB 18 million regarding chat services and another RUB 1 million for a feature that Snapchat allowed where messages would disappear.

The fines arose when we heard so many complaints about Russian state communications and how the regulators were not happy with the way things were taking place in the country.

These reports are definitely shocking to some who feel the worst kind of propaganda that comes from all over the world is usually through the likes of Russia and especially the way the Kremlin portrays reports in the country to its own citizens.


Read next: WhatsApp users will soon be able react to messages with just a double tap
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

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