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"Editor\u2019s note:\u00A0This article originally\u00A0appeared on East-West Digital News, a leading English-language resource on Russian digital industries and related venture activity.\r\n\r\nIt has been claimed that Russia\u2019s leading social network, Vkontakte.ru (also known as VK.com), has cooperated with the FSB \u2013 the post-Soviet successor to the KGB \u2013 in manipulating user trust and disregarding its own\u00A0privacy rules. The charges come from opposition-minded daily Novaya Gazeta.\r\n\r\nIn a\u00A0denunciation\u00A0that has galvanized opinions in Russia\u2019s digital domain for the last ten days, Novaya accused the social network of behind-the-scenes political scheming back in late 2011 and early 2012. Amid the political turmoil that followed the controversial parliamentary and presidential elections, Vkontakte is reported to have given away users\u2019 personal data to the FSB and also blocked some users who supported the political opposition.\r\n\r\nDirectly implicated is Vkontakte co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov. In what Novaya alleged was a message from Durov to Vladislav Surkov, a notorious hardliner who was, at that time, the deputy head of then President Medvedev\u2019s administration, Durov mentioned that his site \u201C[has] been cooperating with the FSB and Department K [a section of the Interior Ministry responsible for preventing cybercrime] for several years, promptly disclosing information about thousands of our users in the form of IP addresses, phone numbers, and other data required to pin them down.\u201D\r\n\u201CNational interest\u201D vs. user privacy\r\nIn his letter, the Vkontakte CEO justified this dubious activity by citing \u201Cnational interests,\u201D not the least of which included \u201Cpreventing the monopolization of Russia\u2019s social networking market by Facebook\u201D \u00A0and even conceded that \u201Cstifling Internet resources nationwide\u201D was an option the ruling regime could resort to in order to rein in \u201Cviolence and chaos.\u201D\r\n\r\nThe other figure in this dirty business is Vladislav Tsyplukhin, who was Vkontakte\u2019s press secretary at the time. In his own discourse with Surkov, Tsyplukhin wrote that he believed he and his colleagues merited commendations for having \u201Cblocked the radicals among [Vkontakte] users\u201D and for attempting to frustrate the efforts of opposition leaders in December 2011 to stage an organized public protest in Moscow.\r\n\r\nThe December 2011 parliamentary election and the March 2012 presidential election in Russia were marked with controversy, including a swarm of ballot-stuffing and bribery reports, and widespread discontent in public opinion.\r\nFrom lie to confession\r\nOne of the most serious Russian news publications, Novaya Gazeta has\u00A0displayed on its website\u00A0some of the documents incriminating Vkontakte, having judged the likelihood of their being forgeries to be negligible.\r\n\r\nLast week witnessed an unexpected development in the scandal, when Tsyplukhin \u2013 after having denied several times that he or Durov \u201Cever wrote such letters\u201D \u2013\u00A0admitted publicly\u00A0that he \u201Chad lied in his comments to Novaya Gazeta and had in fact cooperated with the Kremlin.\u201D\r\n\r\nThe 25-year-old \u201Cagent of external influence\u201D \u2013 which is how Tsyplukhin defined his role at Vkontakte on\u00A0his personal page\u00A0\u2013 justified this cooperation by the necessity of \u201Cprotecting [his] employer from immoderate intrusions.\u201D\r\n\r\nAccording to Tsyplukhin, he had been a political supporter of the Kremlin at that time, prior to \u201Cchanging [his] political views as a consequence of the December 2011 elections.\u201D\r\n\r\nGeorgy Lobushkin, the current press secretary of Vkontakte, laconically said to Novaya that \u201CPavel [Durov] categorically denies authorship\u201D of the controversial letter.\r\nA note from EWDN\r\nAs a socially and politically important communications resource, Vkontakte is unlikely to have been ignored by the secret service \u2013\u00A0Russia being no different than other countries in this regard.\r\n\r\nLong before Novaya\u2019s revelations, the FSB\u2019s attempts to interfere in the activities of major Russian social networks for political purposes had already been\u00A0alleged. Naturally suspicious of Vkontakte, the protesters of late 2011 tended to communicate and organize their demonstrations via Facebook and Twitter.\r\n\r\nDurov himself said publicly in late 2011 that the Russian secret police had demanded that his site ban online opposition groups supporting post-election protests as well as banning vocal anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny. Yet Durov claimed he had refused to ban these groups \u2013 and, moreover, he published a copy of the police order.\r\n\r\nA possible interpretation for the paradox of Vkontakte helping and resisting the FSB at the same time would be that Tsyplukhin had been appointed to do carry out the dirty job, allowing his boss not to get involved directly and even build an image of political independence.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nImage credit: AFP / Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/12/russias-vkontakte-ru-accused-of-collaborating-with-secret-service-to-strangle-anti-putin-activity/>