video streaming service
Twitch fined in Russia
The video streaming service Twitch icon on an iPhone. photo
© Silas Stein/dpa
Russia officially punishes alleged false reports online, such as statements critical of Russian troops in Ukraine. The streaming service Twitch should now pay.
The Russian judiciary has fined the video streaming service Twitch for spreading alleged false information about the war in Ukraine. A court in Moscow on Tuesday set the amount of the fine at four million rubles (around 69,400 euros), as reported by the state news agency Tass. Specifically, it is about an interview with the advisor in the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Oleksiy Arestovych, who is said to have made misleading statements about air raids on the Odessa region in southern Ukraine. Twitch was asked to delete it.
After the start of hostilities at the end of February, the Russian parliament passed a law criminalizing the denigration of Russian troops and the dissemination of alleged false information about the deployment in Ukraine. For this reason, other independent media have already been banned in Russia or Internet platforms have been fined.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which finances the infrastructure of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is now also threatened with a fine. The charge is that she refused to delete false news about the “military special operation,” as Moscow officially calls Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.