Russia hits Google with $373 million fine for not removing "prohibited" YouTube videos

midian182

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What just happened? Russia continues to slam Google with fines for failing to remove what it deems "prohibited content" from YouTube, most of which relates to the war in Ukraine. The latest incident saw Moscow slap the US giant with a 21.1 billion-rouble (~$373 million) penalty on Monday over videos that, among other things, promote "extremism and terrorism."

Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor said the Tagansky District Court handed down the fine as Google repeatedly failed to restrict access to banned content, with YouTube singled out as a prime offender. It said the video platform had not deleted "fakes about the course of the special military operation in Ukraine, discrediting the armed forces of the Russian Federation," writes Reuters.

Even before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia and Google regularly clashed over issues ranging from where the company stored its data to not removing certain websites from search results. A Russian court slapped a $98 million fine on Google in December for failing to remove what it called illegal content.

Roskomnadzor threatened to hit Google with more fines over the offending YouTube videos in March. It said the fee would start at around $95,000 but could rise to 20% of the company's annual revenue. The latest fine has been calculated from a share of Google's turnover in Russia.

The big question now is whether Google will pay the money. The firm's Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy recently after authorities seized its bank account, leaving it unable to meet financial obligations, including paying staff, suppliers, and vendors.

A report in May revealed YouTube had removed more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels over content relating to the Ukraine war, often due to the invasion being referred to as a "liberation mission." Google has also suspended all advertising in Russia, including on YouTube, over Russia's aggression. But despite Google News being banned in the country, YouTube remains accessible.

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Google can laugh it off. Even caveman Putler and his cronies know that You Tube is by huge margin the most popular internet destination for all Russian citizens - from Novgorod to Vladivostok.

If they shutdown YT there will be another revolution which they may not survive.
 
Google can laugh it off. Even caveman Putler and his cronies know that You Tube is by huge margin the most popular internet destination for all Russian citizens - from Novgorod to Vladivostok.

If they shutdown YT there will be another revolution which they may not survive.
They'll be forced to use Tik Tok :)
 
Russia is just going about this the wrong way. They should be setting up bot farms to report it as violent or disturbing content, and YouTube's bots will do the rest to keep the advertisers happy. Censorship is a-okay when it comes to making McDonalds and Disney comfy with their commercials being on your platform!
 
If they shutdown YT there will be another revolution which they may not survive.
You overestimate nowadays Russians. There was a point when everybody was almost certain that YouTube will be blocked and yet nothing really happened. Also, government is pretty interested in blocking YouTube and making Rutube more popular.
 
Well, what do people expect? Google and the rest of the Western media have basically declared war on the Russian people. Russia is finally getting around to retaliating. War is all about controlling your enemy's access to information. For example, one of the very first acts of the British government in WW1 was to cut the German trans atlantic telegraph cables, and force Germany to use British cables. It effectively cut Germany off from the rest of the world.

Here's a long quote from a BBC article:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42367551

"How Britain pioneered cable-cutting in World War One

Cutting German cables was originally seen as primarily a way of denying the enemy the ability to communicate. But it soon became clear it also offered intelligence possibilities as well.

On 4 August, just before the Alert set sail, a man arrived at the cable station at Porthcurno in Cornwall. On the secluded beach, telegraph cables carrying traffic across the Atlantic came ashore.

The job title of the man was a "censor". In the office of the Eastern Telegraph Company in the British colony of Hong Kong, another "secret censor" walked into his new office.

A similar figure did the same in every far-flung corner of the British Empire, from Malta to Singapore. Once the censors were in position, instructions had told them to send a message to London reading "Fixity London, Fixed".

Britain was taking advantage of its dominance of the international telegraph infrastructure to create the first global communications surveillance system, from Cairo to Cape Town, from Gibraltar to Zanzibar.

Fifty thousand messages would pass through the hands of 180 censors at UK offices alone every single day. Another 400 worked in 120 stations overseas. In all, 80 million messages would be subject to censorship during the war.

The combination of cutting German cables and forcing communications on to British lines provided an intelligence windfall.

Among the messages that Britain intercepted in World War One was the so-called Zimmermann Telegram which revealed a German plan to offer US territory to Mexico and which, in turn, was used to help draw the US on to Britain's side in the war.

Cable-tapping continued through the Cold War. America's Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency (NSA) had an operation codenamed Ivy Bells to tap into Soviet military cables but it was exposed by a traitor."

 
Ruzzians are like zombies instruckted to believe lies.

Unlike 50% of hapless Americans and their Orange Overlord telling them what medications to use for COVID and that he was never lost an election by a landslide....
 
Well, what do people expect? Google and the rest of the Western media have basically declared war on the Russian people. Russia is finally getting around to retaliating. War is all about controlling your enemy's access to information. For example, one of the very first acts of the British government in WW1 was to cut the German trans atlantic telegraph cables, and force Germany to use British cables. It effectively cut Germany off from the rest of the world.

Here's a long quote from a BBC article:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42367551

"How Britain pioneered cable-cutting in World War One

Cutting German cables was originally seen as primarily a way of denying the enemy the ability to communicate. But it soon became clear it also offered intelligence possibilities as well.

On 4 August, just before the Alert set sail, a man arrived at the cable station at Porthcurno in Cornwall. On the secluded beach, telegraph cables carrying traffic across the Atlantic came ashore.

The job title of the man was a "censor". In the office of the Eastern Telegraph Company in the British colony of Hong Kong, another "secret censor" walked into his new office.

A similar figure did the same in every far-flung corner of the British Empire, from Malta to Singapore. Once the censors were in position, instructions had told them to send a message to London reading "Fixity London, Fixed".

Britain was taking advantage of its dominance of the international telegraph infrastructure to create the first global communications surveillance system, from Cairo to Cape Town, from Gibraltar to Zanzibar.

Fifty thousand messages would pass through the hands of 180 censors at UK offices alone every single day. Another 400 worked in 120 stations overseas. In all, 80 million messages would be subject to censorship during the war.

The combination of cutting German cables and forcing communications on to British lines provided an intelligence windfall.

Among the messages that Britain intercepted in World War One was the so-called Zimmermann Telegram which revealed a German plan to offer US territory to Mexico and which, in turn, was used to help draw the US on to Britain's side in the war.

Cable-tapping continued through the Cold War. America's Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency (NSA) had an operation codenamed Ivy Bells to tap into Soviet military cables but it was exposed by a traitor."
Thanks for the history lesson, Captain Yesterday! Everything you said is irrelevant. Yes, Russia has a bunch of natural gas and oil that everyone seems to want, but consider the fact that Russia's economy is 25% smaller than that of Italy. You know, Italy, that *one* country in Europe. So you can ramble on about history and controlling information, etc. but at the end of the day Russia can be made irrelevant. In fact, if they didn't constantly threaten the world with their nuclear weapons they would've been made completely irrelevant long ago.
 
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