Google censorship is a planetary reality, affecting the US as much as its sanctioned adversary Russia.
In the case of Russia, it has been in conflict with video platform YouTube for over four years, and now it arises that the value of the Russian fines against Google is something that will require an exercise of our imagination.
What’s the biggest number you can think of? It’s probably bigger.
Google now owes some 2 undecillion rubles ($20 decillion) worth of fines in Russia. In dollar terms, the tech giant has been told to pay $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Yes, you read it right. It’s a value larger than the whole world GDP.
The absurd situation evolved after Google for years refused to restore the accounts of Russian outlets.
The Moscow Times reported:
“Google began accumulating daily penalties of 100,000 rubles in 2020 after the pro-government media outlets Tsargrad and RIA FAN won lawsuits against the company for blocking their YouTube channels. Those daily penalties have doubled each week, leading to the current overall fine of around 2 undecillion rubles.”
Undecillion is a number equal to 1 followed by 36 zeros.
Not even powerful Alphabet, the owner of Google, can deal with a value anywhere near it.
“A total of 17 Russian TV channels have filed legal claims against Google, according to one of RBC’s sources. Among them are the state-run Channel One, the military-affiliated Zvezda broadcaster and a company representing RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.”
YouTube did what it always does, and blocked several Russian media outlets over their support for the war in Ukraine.
Russia retaliated with hefty fines but did not block the website.
“Google’s Russian subsidiary filed for bankruptcy in the summer of 2022 and was officially declared bankrupt last fall. Alphabet Inc’s Google had earlier halted advertising in Russia to comply with Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.”
Russian media outlets were also banned in Europe – prompting retaliatory measures from Moscow – but nothing this drastic.
BBC reported:
“According to Tass, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov admitted he ‘cannot even pronounce this number’ but urged ‘Google management to pay attention’.
The company has not commented publicly or responded to a BBC request for a statement.”
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The post CRAZY: For Blocking Its Channels on YouTube, Russia Has Fined Google $20 Decillion – More Than the Entire World GDP appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.