Controversial anti-gay Russian MP Milonov blocked from TikTok, blames ban on ‘foreign sodomites’ abusing his freedom of speech

The Chinese video-sharing app TikTok has blocked the account of Vitaly Milonov, a controversial politician from Saint Petersburg known internationally for his homophobic views, who has pinned the blame for his ban on “sodomites.”

Speaking to RIA Novosti on Monday, Milonov said that his team has already sent complaints and appeals to the tech giant, but is yet to receive any response.

“Some foreign sodomites want to once again abuse freedom of speech and my account,” he told the news agency.

It is still possible to view Milonov’s TikTok videos, but the State Duma parliamentarian is not able to post any new material.

Milonov’s TikTok account was created last April, when he posted a video of himself smelling a plant and dancing around a monument of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, all to the sound of Jay Sean’s 2008 hit ‘Ride It.’

Speaking to Russian gossip site Life.ru, the politician said that the move to ban him from TikTok is a sign that Russians should create their own TikTok analogue, just as programmer Pavel Durov created VKontakte, a Facebook clone.

“This is a campaign to discredit and shut the mouths of common sense around the world,” he told Life. “It is clear that the social network TikTok is just afraid of those people who dare to speak understandable and sensible thoughts.”

Before he had his own account, Milonov attacked TikTok as “boorish” and “duplicitous.”

The outspoken MP is most famous for his homophobic views, and was the most vocal proponent of Russia’s 2013 so-called ‘gay propaganda law’, which seeks to prohibit minors from exposure to LGBT material. In the time since, he has proposed numerous outlandish laws, including a ban on men walking topless on the street. He also suggested that fathers who fail to pay alimony should not be listed as male on their official documents because “a real man will never abandon his kids.”

Further, his controversies extend not only to his anti-gay views. In 2014, he was accused of making anti-Semitic statements to the St. Petersburg Legislative Council and, in 2016, he suggested that Russia use the historical name ‘Constantinople’ instead of ‘Istanbul’ for maps.

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