The case in Russia was based on the instance where a meme of a singer with a label "smack the bitch in the face” (attributed to other music band and omitted in the WP article) started circulating on the Internet and damaged his public image. (Source: KnowYourMeme). The article you linked doesn't (in my opinion) provide balanced viewpoint, makes use of unprofessional language, and makes it look like the evil Putin just nuked the memes out of existence, while in reality it stems from a justified defamation lawsuit.
Even in the US you can sue for the same reason : Val Chmerkovskiy sued for $6M over meme he shared
Many Western and non-Western countries have had laws against defamation and libel for a long time.
From Wikipedia - Defamation :
Defamation—also calumny, vilification, and traducement—is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.[1]
Article 17 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states
- No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.
- Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
From United States defamation law - Wikipedia :
Laws regulating slander and libel in the United States began to develop even before the American Revolution. In one of the most famous cases, New York publisher John Peter Zenger was imprisoned for 8 months in 1734 for printing attacks on the governor of the colony. Zenger won his case and was acquitted by jury in 1735 under the counsel of Andrew Hamilton. The case established some precedent that the truth should be an absolute defense against libel charges. Previous English defamation law had not provided this guarantee. Gouverneur Morris, a major contributor in the framing of the U.S. Constitution said, "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America".[3]