Russian court fines Twitter 3,000 rubles for storing Russian users' data outside Russia

A Moscow judge ruled Friday that Twitter must pay a fine of 3,000 rubles ($45.90) for storing data about its Russian users outside Russia’s borders, Mediazona reported. A law requiring such data to be stored in Russia has been in effect since September 2015, and a wave of heightened enforcement one year later resulted in the blockage of LinkedIn within Russian borders.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian government’s censorship agency, first sent warnings to Twitter and Facebook demanding that they change their data storage practices in December 2018. The current charges against Twitter are administrative, and the 3,000-ruble fine is the lowest available under the relevant law. A court will begin considering Facebook’s case on April 12.