Russia to Enforce Search Engine Disclaimers on Five Foreign IT Firms

A screen display the company logo for Pinterest Inc. during the company's IPO on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, April 18, 2019. (Reuters)
A screen display the company logo for Pinterest Inc. during the company's IPO on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, April 18, 2019. (Reuters)
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Russia to Enforce Search Engine Disclaimers on Five Foreign IT Firms

A screen display the company logo for Pinterest Inc. during the company's IPO on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, April 18, 2019. (Reuters)
A screen display the company logo for Pinterest Inc. during the company's IPO on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, April 18, 2019. (Reuters)

Russia's state communications regulator said on Friday it was taking punitive measures against five foreign IT companies for violating online content laws, which could require search engines to include a disclaimer about the violations.

The regulator, Roskomnadzor, said it was imposing measures against ByteDance's TikTok, Telegram messaging service, Zoom Video Communications, chat tool Discord and Pinterest.

In a statement, Roskomnadzor said that the measures were in response to the companies' failure to remove content that it had flagged as illegal, and would remain in place until they complied.

None of the companies immediately responded to written requests for comment.

Roskomnadzor did not specify precisely what measures would be taken. Russia's dominant Yandex search engine already carries a disclaimer for some other websites that reads: "Roskomnadzor: website violates Russian law".

"Roskomnadzor has decided to apply enforcement measures ... in the form of internet users being informed by search engines about the companies' violations of Russian legislation," the regulator said.

Russia has fined several, mostly foreign tech firms for not deleting content it deems illegal. It has also warned sites against violating a law passed in early March that prohibits "discrediting" the armed forces, with a sentence of up to 15 years.

On Tuesday, Russian courts fined Amazon's live streaming unit Twitch 2 million roubles ($33,900) and Telegram 11 million roubles for hosting content that Moscow said contained "fake" information concerning events in Ukraine.

Russian lawmakers in July approved a bill providing for stricter penalties for foreign internet companies, including the search engine disclaimer.



Alibaba’s AI Reasoning Model Drives Shares Higher 

A logo of Alibaba is seen outside its offices in Beijing on February 14, 2025. (AFP)
A logo of Alibaba is seen outside its offices in Beijing on February 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Alibaba’s AI Reasoning Model Drives Shares Higher 

A logo of Alibaba is seen outside its offices in Beijing on February 14, 2025. (AFP)
A logo of Alibaba is seen outside its offices in Beijing on February 14, 2025. (AFP)

Alibaba Group's release of an artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning model, which it said was on par with global hit DeepSeek's R1, drove its Hong Kong-listed shares more than 8% higher on Thursday.

In a post on X, the e-commerce leader's AI unit said its QwQ-32B, with 32 billion parameters, can achieve performance comparable to DeepSeek's R1 model that has 671 billion parameters.

As the world races to adopt AI models, the Chinese government on Wednesday pledged increased support for industries including artificial intelligence, humanoid robots and 6G telecom.

Alibaba said its new model is accessible via its chatbot service, Qwen Chat, for which users can choose various Qwen models including Qwen2.5-Max, the most powerful language model in the Qwen series.

The QwQ-32B demonstrated capabilities in mathematical reasoning, coding and general problem-solving in benchmark tests, performing close to top models such as OpenAI's o1 mini and DeepSeek's R1, Alibaba said further.

DeepSeek has emerged as the poster child of China's AI prowess, rivaling top models from OpenAI for a small fraction of their cost with less powerful computing.

Another AI release that attracted significant attention on Thursday was the release of an AI agent called Manus by Chinese startup Monica, which said it beat ChatGPT maker OpenAI's Deep Research on a benchmark for AI assistants.

An AI agent is a more advanced version of a chatbot and according to use cases listed on its website, Manus can help users to make a travel plan to Japan, or conduct a comparative analysis of insurance policies.

The AI agent is for now by invitation only. A video released by the Chinese startup on X late on Wednesday demonstrating how it worked received over 280,000 views by Thursday, with many users asking for invites.