A growing number of Russian and Ukrainian Facebook users have had their accounts temporarily suspended over spurious accusations which they say have been logged by pro-Kremlin users upset by the political views they have expressed.

Russian journalist and blogger Ostap Karmodi has decided to take against stand against what he says is a growing problem. He has started a petition on Change.org asking Facebook to unblock “all Russian and Ukrainian user accounts which were blocked during the last several weeks”.

The petition asks Facebook to change its approach to blocking until: “a new moderation system, designed to withstand paid troll attacks and prevent misuse to achieve political aims, is put in place.”

Nearly 11,500 people have signed the petition, including opposition activist Aleksei Navalny, novelist Boris Akunin, poet Veronika Dolina, and longtime rights activist Pavel Litvinov.

“The mass blocking inside the Russian and Ukrainian segments of Facebook started in the fall of 2014,” Karmodi says. “But since April or May of this year, the number of cases has grown significantly.”

“Several Ukrainians report that they are blocked within hours of having an earlier ban lifted,” Karmodi added. “If they can’t find an excuse in any new posts, the trolls go looking for grounds to complain in posts from last year or the year before.”

Earlier this month Ukrainian journalist and activist Andriy Kapustin decided to test the theory that Russian trolls are playing a significant role in the blocking of accounts: he posted a selfie on his Facebook page with former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili.

“I’m interested to see if once again the bots from Olgino will file fresh complaints that this is pornography,” he wrote in the post, referring to the St Petersburg suburb where a notorious pro-Kremlin troll factory is said to be headquartered.

Sure enough, Kapustin’s account was briefly blocked pending an investigation into complaints of inappropriate material.

Nearly 11,500 people have signed the petition, including opposition activist Aleksei Navalny. Photograph: Screenshot

Facebook’s response

The list of users who say they have been targeted and then subsequently blocked by Facebook is long: Ukrainian artist Oleksandr Roitburd, Ukrainian politician Borislav Bereza, Russian journalist Anton Krasovsky, Russian businessman and blogger Slava Rabinovich and Ukrainian poet Andriy Bondar, amongst many others.

On 8 June, Facebook published a response to Karmodi’s petition in which it defended its systems for responding to complaints and denied that large numbers of complaints influence its decisions.



“It doesn’t matter if something is reported once or 100 times, we only remove content that goes against [our] standards,” the response states. It says that with 1.4bn users, a “small number” of mistakes do occur but that Facebook has mechanisms in place for correcting errors.

Tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian bloggers no longer feel safe on Facebook Ostap Karmodi

The petition organisers answered the social network’s statement by saying the company’s response indicates it doesn’t “understand the gravity of the problem”.

They directed the company to a recent article in New York Times magazine about the Ogino troll factory and asserted: “We have good reasons to believe that your moderation system is being exploited by people paid from the same sources and using similar methods.”

Russian blogger and photographer Rustem Adagamov says he had his account blocked in May after Facebook received complaints he was promoting fascism by posting a photograph of Nazi-era Christmas decorations that he took at a museum in Norway.

“I know perfectly well where the hundreds of complaints about my Facebook account are coming from,” Adagamov said. “I am constantly getting notices about such complaints, some of them quite absurd.

“Certain structures that receive financing in order to combat dissent in the Russian-language internet are looking for ways to affect people they don’t like. And Facebook is really helping them in this,” the blogger said.

Although blocked accounts are usually quickly restored, activists argue that the bans are significant: they say they annoy and distract their targets, and encourage self-censorship.

“Tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian bloggers no longer feel safe on Facebook,” Karmodi says. “They know that they are potential targets for trolls and that their accounts can be blocked at any moment.”

“In the virtual war, the Kremlin’s team is winning for now,” Karmodi said, “and, either intentionally or through thoughtlessness, Facebook’s administration is fighting on their side.”