Russia’s biggest social network accused of extremism propaganda

Published time: September 11, 2012 11:10
Edited time: September 11, 2012 15:12
screenshot from http://vk.com/

United Russia deputy Sergey Zheleznyak is demanding a probe into alleged extremist propaganda on one of the country’s most popular social networks, VKontakte.

Zheleznyak, the State Duma vice Speaker, has sent a request to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor, writes Izvestia daily.

Among videos uploaded by network users MPs discovered extremist material as well as speeches by terrorists – including Russia’s most-wanted man Doku Umraov – and other North Caucasus militant leaders.

In addition, the lawmakers say they found several hundred clips promoting ideas of Hizb ut-Tahrir – an international Sunni pan-Islamic political organization which is banned in Russia. Besides that, supporters of such organizations – via virtual groups – urge VKontakte users to raise money for opposition troops in Syria.

“All these videos must undergo an expert examination…and then measures must be taken,” insists Liberal-Democratic Party deputy, Yaroslav Nilov.

Another lawmaker, United Russia’s Gadzhimet Safaraliyev, believes that it is necessary to punish the owners of networks where extremist materials are posted.

“Speeches by such figures as Doku Umarov must not be openly available on the net, where half of users are children,” he underlined. “That’s a direct influence of extremist ideas on our youth.”

Meanwhile, VKontakte states that the parliamentarians could have simply contacted the network and say what materials must be removed.

VKontakte – a Russian version of Facebook – is the top Russian-language social networking service which boasts over 140 million registered users. The web service has repeatedly been at the center of scandals over distribution of illegal content.

According to Russia’s Prosecutor General, the growing popularity of social networks “plays into the hands of extremists. In 2011, law enforcement agencies unmasked on-line groups that united several thousand members of an extremist organization banned by the court. Dozens of criminal cases were opened.

Free distribution of banned content – including child pornography and racist material – has long been a headache for the government.

In a move to tackle the problem, President Putin signed into law a website black list – obliging Russian internet providers to block websites with banned content.

Comments (14)

Brasivnika 11.09.2012 22:10

“Speeches by such figures as Doku Umarov must not be openly available on the net, where half of users are children,” he underlined. “That’s a direct influence of extremist ideas on our youth.”
Agreed. Children should be taught free thought and morals. Now in America, children have no chance. The extremist levels of convert propaganda slowly turn the masses into one crystalized public of innate stupidity, harnessing prejudice and generalizations to get into more wars instead of free-thinking and moral behavior. The amount of (not obvious) dishonest demagoguery and slavering political messages imbued with regular education in the USA is staggering and frightening. It is all targeted at the helpless children... that is why it makes such an impact. The zionist-agenda Jews get their agents in the education fields, and pretty soon, all school-systems in the country support their agenda. Pretty soon, you have a whole nation of unwitting pseudo-Zionists from the new generation that has been tainted so.
No wonder Zionists (which have caused it, mind you) are in complete command and the nation is dying from internal failures in all fields. The people are stupid, prejudiced, overgeneralizing, fat & lazy, entitled; the government is a lying, conniving, ZIonist-owned, scheming, twisted husks of what it once was; the leadership system is rigged and all honest candidates are snuffed out (think: Ron Paul), immigrants who care nothing for the country are constantly imported to the delight of the brainwashed masses; people curse their own blood and heritage and make wild and unintelligent conclusions about the world without thinking just who planted such ideas in their head in the first place, and Zionist-bankers strip the country's assets whilst destroying the rest of it.
This is not USA hate. This is the truth. If anyone here loves the US, for whatever reason, do the patriotic thing and pay good attention to what I've just said... my god, what has the USA become?

+2

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slavixtube 11.09.2012 20:31

I don't know anything about my opera com, but I would prefer if RT would integrate something like diaspora open source community social network with this site. Diaspora is similar to fb but is publicly owned and open source with great social network features.

+1

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R.W. Emerson II 11.09.2012 19:32

slavixtube (September 11, 2012, 23:15) writes: > RT SHOULD have a social network, but for some reason RT management has not realized that they should spend some money on upgrading this site and turning it into a global social network. I have been calling on RT for MONTHS to upgrade this horrible, outdated comment board, only for my calls to be IGNORED..What do you think of "my opera com"? It's an international site, censorship free, ad free, with everything one could ask for in software: full html support, editing, graphics, albums, polls, profiles, private blogs, forum, mail service.

+1

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