Russia: Amazon, Twitch and TikTok must pay penalties

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has been going on for over seven months now. However, ruler Putin does not only have the conquest of the neighboring country in the west in his sights. The fact that he also wants to send a signal against the Western lifestyle with his attack is shown by the measures taken against well-known tech companies. Thus, in Russia, TikTok, Amazon and Twitch now have to pay hefty fines.

Fight against “illegal” content

Western tech corporations have been a thorn in the side of Russia’s power apparatus not just since the start of the Ukraine war. For example, Google had to pay a hefty fine in July. Behind this was allegedly the dominant market position of its in-house platform YouTube. The next victims of Moscow’s censorship policy now appear to be Amazon, Twitch and TikTok. While the giant online marketplace will have to pay the equivalent of about 204,000 euros, TikTok will be fined just under 51,000 euros and Twitch about 68,000 euros. According to a report by the Reuters news agency, the fine against Amazon is a first. For example, the U.S. company has not yet had to accept a comparable fine in Russia.

What exactly lies behind the fine now imposed, the responsible Moscow court gives out rather cryptically. It is said to be several “violations of the procedure for restricting access to information”. The situation is different for TikTok and Twitch. Indeed, a different Reuters report, which in turn deals with the fine against the Chinese video portal and the streaming service belonging to Amazon, clarifies that content banned in Russia about LGTBQ and the Ukraine war were the reason for the fines.

Russia remains true to its line

Russia’s action is not really surprising. After all, the leadership in the Kremlin knows exactly what content about big tech corporations is seen in the country. This is likely to be accompanied by a fair amount of fear of information from the country’s own population. Not without reason was Google fined a fair amount for “anti-Russian” content on YouTube a few months ago. The government in Moscow did not leave Twitter and Meta out either. The two corporations also had to accept fines due to alleged “fake news” about Russia’s poor military strategy. It is therefore not surprising that Instagram and Facebook can no longer be used in Russia. Access to Twitter is also restricted.