Russia has fined the international travel site Booking.com roughly $70,000 for sending hotel partners information about housing LGBTQ+ tourists during Pride Month, the latest move in a widening crackdown on companies accused of violating the country's "gay propaganda" laws.
What Happened
According to Ukrainian outlet United24 Media, citing Russian Telegram channels, the Tagansky court issued Booking.com two three-million-ruble ($35,000) fines: one for violating the propaganda law itself, the other for failing to remove the newsletter despite the company's claim it deleted the message on March 11.
A Law That Keeps Expanding
Russia's propaganda law began in 2013, banning promotion of "nontraditional sexual relations" to minors. The Duma widened it to cover all ages in 2022, criminalizing any information seen as promoting homosexuality online, in film, books, or advertising. In 2023, the Supreme Court went further, branding the "international LGBT movement" an "extremist organization," a label since used to justify raids, prosecutions, and shutdowns nationwide.
That expansion paid off for prosecutors: courts convicted 56% of propaganda defendants after the 2022 change, and corporate fines have tripled compared with the entire decade before it, reaching as high as 5 million rubles.
Big Tech and Streaming Caught in the Net
Booking.com isn't alone. In February, streamers Kinopoisk, Ivi, and Wink were each fined 3 to 3.5 million rubles for hosting LGBTQ+ content. Roblox drew an 8-million-ruble fine in April, and Apple has faced 10.5 million rubles across separate cases, several mirroring Booking.com's pattern of a content fine plus a removal fine. Courts often won't say what content triggered the penalty; Apple's hearings were closed at its own request, leaving the complaint unclear.
The Wider Crackdown
This year alone, Russia has charged streamers over the gay hockey drama Heated Rivalry, raided an LGBTQ+ book imprint, fined a man for posting a photo of a drag queen, banned a scientist from writing about same-sex animal behavior, and labeled multiple LGBTQ+ rights groups "extremist." In August, the Russian LGBT Network, the country's largest queer advocacy group, best known for rescuing gay people fleeing Chechnya's campaign of torture and "honor killings," announced it was shutting down.
For many years, Russian LGBT Network brought together initiatives and activists and supported queer people across the country.
Russian LGBT Network
The group said its new "extremist" status made continuing to operate publicly too dangerous for the people it was trying to protect.
MQ's Take
Booking.com's offense, by Russia's own account, was sending hotels a newsletter about where LGBTQ+ travelers might safely stay. That a routine logistics email can trigger $70,000 in fines shows how far enforcement has moved from policing speech to erasing the everyday infrastructure that lets queer people simply exist in public. Vladimir Putin has cited this same anti-LGBTQ+ animus to help justify the invasion of Ukraine, now in its fourth year. Watching a hotel newsletter treated like a security threat shows how deep that logic runs.
Source: LGBTQ Nation
