Moscow, Aug 15 (EFE).- A Moscow court Tuesday fined American social bookmarking website and news aggregator Reddit two million rubles ($20,400) for failing to remove “banned content” in Russia.
Ria Novosti news agency said the Tagansky district of Moscow fined Reddit because it failed to remove fake information about Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and a popular informal movement that pushes youngsters into the criminal underground.
Judge Timur Vakhrameev found Reddit guilty of violating Article 41 of the Russian law, which punishes refusal to remove “unreliable information aimed at destabilizing the socio-political situation in the country.”
According to the prosecution, Reddit did not remove information about Russian criminal group AUE, considered an extremist organization, and “fake news” regarding the war in Ukraine.
Russia had banned AUE, an acronym for the motto “The way of life of prisoners,” is an informal groping that promotes a criminal subculture of youth gangs, “with a conduct consistent with organized crime.”
The prosecutor accused Reddit of posting “fake information” about the war in Ukraine.
Reddit’s representatives and lawyers did not appear for the hearing.
Russia has imposed fines on the foreign giants, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Wikimedia, since the invasion of Ukraine.
The companies faced scrutiny because they did not remove the content related to the conflict that Russia said was false and misleading. EFE
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