The Russian State Duma is debating a bill that will result in heavy fines for platforms that fail to remove content prohibited by the regulator Roskomnadzor.
ComNews reports that these would range from R50,000 -100,000 (€615-1,230) for individuals right up to R8-15 million for repeat violations by legal entities.
It adds that the bill has been proposed by Alexander Khinshtein, head of the State Duma committee on information policy, information technologies and communications, and Sergey Boyarsky, deputy from the United Russia party, and his deputy.
The biggest “violators” are companies outside Russia, with YouTube having failed to remove 10,482 URLs as of April this year. It was followed by Twitter (1,462), Instagram (1,435) and Facebook (362).