(Reuters): Alphabet, the parent company of Google, was fined 3.8 million roubles ($41,530) by a Russian court for hosting YouTube videos that purportedly gave Russian soldiers surrender instructions. Russia's TASS news agency announced the decision on Monday.
Russia has been enforcing rules on foreign tech companies for years, demanding that they take down content that it considers unlawful. Material pertaining to the conflict in Ukraine has been specifically targeted by authorities, who have branded it as "fake news." Businesses that violate the law are subject to recurring, albeit minor, fines.
Lack of response from Google regarding requests for comment on the recent penalty. Critics alleged the intention of Russian authorities to slow down the download speed of YouTube in order to restrict access to relatively critical content about President Vladimir Putin and his administration.
The allegations have been denied by the government of Russia stating that the problems' cause was the incapacity of the Google infrastructure to modernize. However, business and outside technology experts oppose this explanation.
President Putin reaffirmed long-standing tensions between Russia and Western digital companies in December when he accused Google of being a vehicle used by the U.S. government to forward its political agenda.
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