Russians face fines for sending extremist stickers in Telegram

      Russian Telegram users may be fined for sending extremist stickers. About this publication Gazeta.ru Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, said, urging the messenger to tighten content moderation.

      According to the deputy, the public dissemination of extremist materials in Russia is prohibited and entails fines. Nemkin expressed the hope that the messenger, at the request of Roskomnadzor, would promptly remove controversial sets of stickers for Russian users, thereby avoiding the need to fine the messenger itself for distributing prohibited information.

      The situation worsened after the decision of the Zuyevsky District Court of the Kirov region, which banned the use of several sets of stickers. The prosecutor's office found that these stickers contain images of prohibited symbols and paraphernalia. The court's decision has already entered into force, and Roskomnadzor will receive a copy of it to include the relevant content in the register of information prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation.

      MP Nemkin stressed that it is necessary to review and tighten the rules for content moderation in order to promptly block any prohibited information in the messenger.