Russian Court 4 million rubles fines Meta (Facebook) for posting LGBT propaganda

MOSCOW: The court fined Meta Platforms (recognized as extremist, banned in Russia) 4 million rubles for publishing posts with LGBT propaganda. This was reported on Tuesday by a Tass correspondent from the hall of the 422nd world court district, where the corresponding case of an administrative offense was considered.

"The court found Meta company guilty under part 2 of article 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("Failure to delete information by the site in cases where the obligation to delete it is provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation") and imposed a fine of 4 million rubles," the judge read out the decision Timur Vakhrameev.

Representatives of Meta did not appear in court, although they were notified.

Earlier, the court received a protocol from Roskomnadzor regarding Meta. The reason was the publication on Instagram and Facebook of reposts from OVD-Info (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation) with links to materials promoting the LGBT community.

According to Vakhrameev, earlier the Lukhovitsky Court of the Moscow Region, at the request of the prosecutor's office, ordered Meta Platforms to restrict access to several posts on Instagram and Facebook in the Russian Federation, which contained links to materials from OVD-Info and a number of other sites. Some of these links led to articles with the manifesto of the LGBT movement, and some to pictures and collages on the Internet that insulted the coat of arms and the flag of the Russian Federation. "According to the decision of the Lukhovitsky court, this information should have been deleted back in 2020, but this has not been done so far. In this regard, Roskomnadzor has drawn up a protocol that is being considered at this meeting," Vakhrameev said.

Metropolitan courts have regularly fined the company since 2021 for refusing to remove prohibited information. At the end of December, a turnover fine of more than 1.9 billion rubles was imposed on the company for the systematic failure to remove prohibited content.

On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation and recognized the activities of the social networks Instagram and Facebook, owned by Meta, as extremist, banning their work in Russia. At the same time, citizens and organizations will not be held accountable for extremism for using these social networks.