Facebook Targets Russian Users

The American social network blocks Russian user's accounts for abusive terms.

The American social network, Facebook, has received a bad news from Russia. Facebook news reported that President Vladmir Putin’s adviser, Igor Shchegolev, has urged that the Russian networkers should deactivate their accounts on the platform. The advice has been given after the company suspended the accounts of several Russians who had used a slang term “khokhol“ to refer to Ukrainians.

Facebook news today informed that the Ukrainian dictionary defines the term as an abusive name for a Ukrainian. The battle between rebels and the Eastern European country’s military force has amended the meaning of the abusive word, as it is now being interpreted as meaningless.

In the latter part of June, a Russian writer, named Eduard Havirov, was suspended from the social network for a time span of 7 days for using the notorious word. Similarly, Maxim Ksenzov, Deputy Head of the Russian communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, was banned for 24 hours.

According to Facebook breaking news, Ksenzov stated, “Tolerance is fashionable at the moment (and I’m not talking about the religious notion). But I don’t want to be tolerant! Soviet people are Soviet People. Sometimes khokhly are khokhly.”

Shortly after the ban, Maxim proclaimed to eliminate his social networking account on the social network platform. Press sources indicated that a journalist named Maxim Kononenko has also been targeted by the highhandedness of the enterprise. He was blocked for publishing a poem by Alexander Pushkin, a man widely recognized to be Russia’s greatest poet.

The company has also acted against the interests of a number of other Russian personalities, including Dmitry Popov and Anton Nosik. Commercial sources highlighted that in accordance to the community standards of the networking company, the social platform removes hate speech, which is defined as content that directly targets others based on their national origin, race, and ethnicity. Facebook’s official has responded by stating that they do not discuss individual cases of blocking user profiles.

Industry experts are of the view that the organization’s actions against the use of the specific term would not let it survive in the Russian market, as a significant number of Russian personalities have started to act against its interests. The network users in the country are suggested to use the alternative platform, known as Vkontakte.

Facebook’s management should now formulate plans and take steps to address the concerns of the targeted networkers; otherwise, it might lose a huge market, which is bound to have a significant impact on the company.