- A Russian court fined Twitch roughly $49,000 for not removing a livestream, state media reported.
- The two-hour stream featured a Ukrainian presidential aide, according to Reuters.
A Russian court fined the streaming platform Twitch 3 million roubles, which is roughly $49,000, for not taking down a livestream, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing Russian news agencies.
The livestream was two hours long and featured an interview with Alexey Arestovich, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to the reports.
Russia fined the company because it alleged the stream included "false information" about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to the Russian state-owned news agency TASS. Twitch did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February, the Kremlin has cracked down on free speech, acting strictly and censoriously in terms of how it allows citizens and businesses to discuss the assault.
The fine follows two other similar incidents this year, including one in early August when Russia fined Twitch two million roubles (around $33,000) for a half-minute clip that Russian officials claimed had "fake" info related to the massacre of Ukrainians in the city of Bucha, Ukraine.
The fines against Twitch come after Russian courts have already taken legal action against other social media companies including Meta, TikTok, and Telegram, ordering the platforms to pay money because of the content they house.
In mid-August, the same court mandated that Telegram pay 7 million roubles, which is nearly $120,000, for keeping a post online, according to Radio Free Europe, a US-funded media organization centered around free speech.
In July, a Moscow court ordered Google to pay $377 million for a "repeated failure" to take down content, especially on YouTube, that Russia claimed without evidence was fake news or extremist, Reuters reported.
Back in April, a Moscow court ruled that both Meta and TikTok had to pay 4 million and 2 million rubles, respectively, for not deleting content related to the LGBTQ community, Radio Free Europe reported.
And a Russian court in March declared Meta guilty of extremist activities, and banned Facebook and Instagram in the country.