Moscow court fines Telegram for failing to remove anti-government content

Telegram has been fined 7 million rubles (about 80,000 $) for failing to remove calls for protests and terrorist attacks against the Kremlin. A Moscow court found the platform guilty of distributing extremist material.

According to TASS, Telegram failed to remove content that called for violence, terrorist attacks on railways in support of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and participation in protests aimed at overthrowing the current government in Russia. The decision was made in the context of a larger campaign to control the digital space, which the Kremlin has been actively implementing since 2022. Telegram, which has almost a billion users and is especially popular in the countries of the former USSR, has not yet made an official comment.

• The moscow court’s decision is another example of how authoritarian regimes seek to subordinate digital platforms to their own political needs. While Telegram balances freedom of expression and the fight against illegal content, governments like Russia’s are resorting to pressure tools for selective censorship. This poses serious challenges for global platforms in the areas of content moderation, human rights, and jurisdictional responsibility.