Founder of Russia’s ‘Facebook’ Says He Was Ousted, Putin’s Men in ‘Complete Control’ of the Site
Pavel Durov, the 29-year-old founder of Vkontakte — Russia’s “Facebook” — was fired form the social media site, according to Buzzfeed. “Judging by the news, as a result of my public renunciation last week, today I was fired as general director of VKontakte,” Durov posted to the social media site. He also went onto say that after seven years of relative social media freedom, two of Putin’s right hand men are now in control of Vkontakte.
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This power shift would put the social media site, which had previously avoided government control, directly in the hands of two powerful men in Russia, and Putin allies.
The site boasts over 100 million users, and Durov as CEO stayed largely out of politics. He did however refuse censorship attempts — including not shutting down the page of a Putin rival, Alexey Navalny, or Ukrainian protestors.
More: salon.com
This is bad, bad news for internet privacy and Putin opponents.