Russia issues its first fine for trying to boost subscriber numbers in the Max messenger with “shocking” information

Russia issues its first fine for trying to increase subscriber numbers in the Max messenger with “shocking” information

In Ufa, a court fined local resident Rustam Akmalov 30,000 rubles for advertising a channel in the Max messenger on VKontakte. Verstka found the corresponding ruling in the court records.

According to the document, Akmalov owns the VK public page “Car Exchange Auto Market Ufa Bashkortostan,” which has 13,400 subscribers. On his public page, he posted a photo of a destroyed building and a link to the Max channel “Ufa Now,” where details of the incident had supposedly been published.

Prosecutor’s office employees took notice of the post. They established that the published photograph showed an apartment building in Magnitogorsk where, in December 2018, what authorities said was a gas explosion took place.

The prosecutor’s office employees concluded that the published photo “does not correspond to the distributed message about an event allegedly happening ‘just now.’” In addition, they checked the Max channel “Ufa Now” and did not find any details there about what had happened.

“The assertion in the analyzed informational material at the address... that ‘The details have already been posted here...’ is false, and therefore the ‘shocking’ informational material was published specifically to increase the number of subscribers to the Max channel ‘Ufa Now,’ while the information itself is knowingly false,” the ruling says.

🟦Government agencies and pro-government media regularly post materials on their resources whose details can only be learned by going to their pages in the Max messenger. In particular, this is done by the Kremlin pool outlet RIA Novosti and the Defense Ministry.

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