A Russian court has slapped Twitter Inc. with a $116,800 penalty for its failure to delete an alleged banned content.

According to a report by Al Jazeera, the government of Russia has slowed the speed of Twitter until officially threatening to ban the social media platform on March 16 for failing to delete child pornography and drug abuse content.

In another development, the Tagansky District Court in Moscow also slapped Google with three separate fines—worth $42,000, $44,000, and $32,000 over offenses committed on January 22 to 24 this year—for breaking Russia’s Administrative Offenses Code, specifically for violating a procedure for removing information.

The same dates were said to have coincided with the buildup and eruption of protests organized by crows demanding the release of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny.

Russia has since made a step forward to exerting more influence over international social media platforms.

In December last year, Russia’s lower house parliament had passed a bill allowing the government to impose penalties on platforms that do not remove banned content and to restrict access to US social media operators if they discriminate the Russian media.

In January this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained about the rising influence of large technology companies that he claimed were competing with states.

The country regularly fines foreign social media firms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google for failing to comply with its legislation, though the penalties are meager when compared with their profits.

On Thursday, Russia enacted into law a measure making it obligatory for smartphones, tablets, and computers to be pre-installed with Russian software and applications—a move that was seen by critics as another attempt to curb online freedom.

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