Roskomnadzor’s Decision To Slow Down Twitter is Already Bearing Fruit

The butthurt already produced some interesting creative diarrhea…

Roskomnadzor should not stop there, and should ban Facebook, Google and YouTube in Russia. Block it, and make it accessible only through VPN. Social media websites of a hostile country should not do business in Russia. Russia has alternatives to these apps that need to be developed further.

Facebook Blocked A Russian News Story About Arrested Ukrainian Nazi Partisans

Three neonazis in the Russian city of Voronezh were arrested by the police for spreading hateful propaganda…

However, a report about them in the Russian media was censored by Facebook because it said the radicals had links to Ukraine. They were basing this claim on information provided by an insider in the security forces. Facebook has blocked the Russian media report after an analysis done by their Ukrainian fact checkers, the Stop Fake group. I have already featured them on this blog once. Their integrity is impeccable.

The Stop Fake argues that in the official press release of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, there isn’t anything said about Ukrainian affiliation of the arrested, and that they were all Russian citizens. This however does not mean anything. It has to be noted that following the Maidan and the outbreak of military conflict in the Donbass, many Russian Neonazis, literal Hitler worshipers, went to exile to Ukraine because over there they can practice their love for Hitler without repercussions.

I have recently found, for instance, this Neonazi Black Metal group which migrated from Tver, Russia to Ukraine. They recently held a concert in Kiev.

Many of these types have served in Ukraine’s armed forces and they have veteran organizations. My knowledge about them only scratches the surfaces, the topic of Russian neonazis in Ukraine’s forces is a topic for a separate discussion.

But bottom line is that there aren’t just links between Ukrainian and Russian neonazis and an existence of a neonazi group in Russia with contacts in Ukraine is not something implausible.

Links of Stop Fake to Neonazis

Recently, the Ukrainian Soros funded publication Zaborana mentioned some cozy relationships between representatives of Stop Fake and radical nationalists:

One month earlier on June 2nd, Zaborona’s official Facebook page shared a publication about Denis Nikitin, a key figure among European ultra-right radicals, which the social network then blocked 18 hours later. Soon after, Facebook explained that the post was removed by mistake (assumingly, due to a photograph illustrating the material, in which a Ukrainian man wrapped in a swastika flag throws his hand in the Nazi salute) and reinstated it the next day. Zaborona decided to follow up on the incident and later released the material discussing alleged links of the fact-checking project StopFake to Ukrainian far-right and neo-Nazi organisations. Zaborona journalists explained their interest by the fact that after the removal of the Facebook post, some readers recommended to search for possible motives of the new fact-checking partner of Facebook in Ukraine– StopFake.org. On March 27th, Facebook indeed confirmed its partnership with StopFake and VoxUkraine to increase its fact-checking capacities on social network pages in Ukraine.

Zaborona eventually released material that first focused on Yevhen Fedchenko – the co-founder and chief editor for StopFake and director of the Mohyla School of Journalism at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. It pointed out Fedchenko’s habit of taking political stances, speaking against freedom of the press and on one occasion even whitewashing the reputation of a Ukrainian far-right group C14 (Sich), Ukraine’s controversial group of far-right radicals, by singling out one of its members as his respected colleague. Fedchenko has also been accused of taking the side of Myrotvorets, or Peacemaker, a Ukrainian nationalist website that in 2016 doxed the personal data of more than 5,000 Ukrainian and foreign reporters with press passes issued by the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, labeling them “terrorist collaborators”. A closer look, however, reveals that Zaborona’s allegations seem to be taken out of context and might conceal more complex motives in explaining such statements.

Later the Zaborona report moves on to Marko Suprun, “the main face of StopFake” and the person in charge of the English-language StopFakeNews project on YouTube. According to Zaborona’s findings, Suprun has often been spotted in the company of Ukraine’s infamous far-right figures, notably Arseniy Bilodub, the founder of the far-right clothing brand SvasStone and the leader of the hatecore band Sokyra Peruna, and Andriy Sereda, the frontman of another controversial rock band Komu Vnyz. The material refers to photographs of Suprun spotted together with both Bilodub and Sereda, as well as other Ukraine’s far-right radicals, and cites the opinions of experts, who point out that StopFake has become “too politicised,” and that Marko Suprun’s friendship with the extreme right may affect the organisation’s image.

Source

Yevhen Fedchenko blocked me on Twitter after I shared information on Jakub Janda to him. Marko Suprun is the husband of the Ukrainian-American, former Minister of Health of Ukraine, Ulyana Suprun. I am not surprised a Ukrainian-American would hang out with neonazis since many of them are descended from fugitive Nazi collaborators, who were given shelter by the CIA as useful assets in the fight against the Soviet Union. It is without question that having not undergone any denazification, these people still adhere to radical nationalist ideals.

Earlier on this blog, Facebook hires a member of a radical nationalist party to police its website.

Meanwhile, EU vs. Disinfo is trying to say the information that information regarding Neonazis moderating Facebook is disinformation of the Kremlin and says there isn’t any evidence to make this claim. Nothing new, this blog already reported on instances of apologetics for Neonaziism in Ukraine made by that website.

Russia Slows Down Twitter

Roskomnadzor, the Russian agency that monitors and sanctions media has decided to slow down Twitter…

RIA Novosti reports that such a decision was taken because the website refuses to block illegal content. The moderators of Twitter have allegedly failed to remove 3,168 publications containing calls for suicide, child pornography and about the use of drugs.

That is, Roskomnadzor does not care that people with a pro-Russian opinion (see here and here) are massively being blocked by US social media sites, and they come up with a lame justification for why an American tech giant should have their work made more difficult in Russia.

I personally believe that American websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube ought to be blocked in Russia (a market of 150 million people) as an answer to US and Western sanctions. These billion dollar businesses would be easier to ban than food imports. It is not like Facebook is something you necessarily need for living.

Where is the Money?

Apparently, Ukraine gets more money than anyone from the EU:

The European Union has provided Ukraine with over 600 billion euro for seven years. It is the largest aid of the EU than to any other partners as President of the Council of Europe Charles Michel reported at Ukraine 30.

“Over 600 billion euro during seven years – the aid of Ukraine in the European choice. It is the largest aid from the EU than to any other partners, if we do not consider the EU members,” Michel stated.

Where exactly has the money gone? Do you see any improvement in Ukraine?

The Good Guys

Check out this infographic that I discovered…

Where is the lie actually? Did not the EU and affiliated groups pump money into destabilizing Ukraine in 2013-2014? If the EU did not provide support for what is happening in Ukraine, nothing would happen in Ukraine. The sanctions enacted by the West literally are governments shooting business into the foot with the hope that it will hurt the Russians. The Russians meanwhile found non-European (in many cases domestic) alternatives, and Crimea still belongs to Russia. Have the sanctions influenced anything?

Yes they actually did. In many areas where Russia depended on Western resources and services, Russia began a search for substitutions. Even in areas which were not sanctioned, that is because the threat of sanctions is in itself a sufficient motivating factor. In any case, the loser here is Western business.

I am glad there are still sensible politicians here in Europe.

The infographic comes from a fancy Ukrainian effort (probably Western funded) to combat Russian disinformation.

There was Probably an Organized Effort Throughout Social Media Platforms to Censor Information Critical of Alexey Navalny

From Bloomberg:

Facebook Inc. removed a network of more than 500 Instagram accounts that originated in Russia and targeted audiences in support of anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny, according to a new report from the social media company.

The campaign relied on fake accounts to post critical or irrelevant content with hashtags associated with protests in January that backed the imprisoned opposition leader, a phenomenon known as hashtag poisoning, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy. The process involves posting irrelevant or critical content to drown out relevant information and redirect the conversation. In some cases, fake users posted memes suggesting protesters got Covid-19.

Facebook’s automatic systems often detected and removed the fake accounts, prompting the bad actors to create new ones, so there were never 500 accounts in operation at the same time, Gleicher said.

The social media campaign targeted domestic audiences throughout demonstrations attended by tens of thousands of protesters in dozens of cities over the weekends of Jan. 23 and 31. The protests provoked a violent response from authorities, who accuse Navalny of working with foreign governments to try to destabilize the regime.

A video on my YouTube channel showing a violent protester of North Caucasus origin fighting the police was removed on grounds that violence is not allowed on the website. However, my channel contains other videos that could be interpreted as violent, why was this chosen? Maybe because it was posted shortly after the protests and would conflict with the Western media narrative of the protesters being “mostly peaceful.” My Twitter account was suspended because I criticized Navalny. And this leads me to believe that there was a command from somewhere to censor any critical content related to Alexey Navalny.

Why do We Need the EU to Determine What Medicines to use?

The major objection of Russophobes towards Sputnik V, the Russian anti-Covid vaccine, is that it first needs to go through approval of the EU Medicines Agency before their respective countries accept it. Acting unilaterally like we have seen in Hungary or Slovakia brings out indignation…

The question nobody asks is why do we need another EU organ to determine what is safe and good? Why can’t we do it here and now? This dear readers is how the EU works, by undermining in people the faith in national institutions and replacing those with transnational bodies that are said to be more trustworthy than the local governments. This is why many would gladly delegate their decision making to organs in Brussels, where decisions are made in the ideologically proper manner.

So, when a bunch of leftists from Italy, Spain, France and Germany in the EU parliament decide the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary must help their countries alleviate the burden of letting in hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, what are the people that cannot even make a decision on a vaccine going to say then? I personally hope they will fear the wrath of the populations they represent. But meanwhile, I urge you all to vote right-wing parties that want good policies, and FUCK THE EU in 2021…