Russia Launched Civil Cases Against Twitter and Facebook

On Monday, the telecom regulator launched civil cases against Twitter and Facebook over their failure to provide an explanation on how they will act in accordance with data laws.

In a statement, Roskomnadzor (The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) wants to have information on when and how the two social media platforms will abide by the legislation which requires all personal data of Russian citizens will be stored exclusively in the country. Confirmed by Alexander Zharov, the boss of Roskomnadzor, both social media services have only one month to sketch out their plans.

Formal responses from both firms have been sent to comply with the request for details from the watchdog.

The email from Roskomnadzor read:

If Facebook and Twitter don’t follow with the request, each of them will be fined 5,000 rubles (which is equivalent to AU$105, £60, and $75). Furthermore, for data localization, they will be given time from six months to a year.

In one statement, a spokesperson from Facebook said:

As for Twitter, the company declined to give out any comment.

At the moment, any sites that don’t abide by its data regulations, Russia decides to block them or impose a fine of a small amount of money. Back in 2016, LinkedIn was sued by Roskomnadzor for failing to keep the data of Russian citizens on the country’s exclusive servers.

After negotiations were put off, the social network owned by Microsoft was still banned in Russia.

In November, Reuters reported that Russia may soon increase the fines for technology companies.