German Neo-Nazis Flocking to Putin's Facebook Knock-Off VKontakte

Recently I wrote about how Facebook had come under criticism in Germany for allowing users to post racist and hateful messages against refugees.  Facebook was also being used to organize violent protests.  Things reached a climax when Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin and she expressed her concerns.  Since then Facebook has aggressively sought out and shut down accounts with racist content. But that hasn't stopped the neo_Nazis: they found a welcome new home at the Russian socail media site VKontakte or VK.com.  VKontakte is now seen as the "Nazi-Netz":

VK.com ist russischen Ursprungs und behauptet das am schnellsten wachsende Soziale Netzwerk Europas zu sein. VK ist hierzulande offenbar ein Profiteur von Facebook-Flucht – oder von den Aufräumarbeiten, die das Netzwerk angesichts der Hasswellen im Netz begonnen hat. Denn die Plattform scheint unterwandert von Rechts, wie der BR-Journalist Christian Alt festgehalten hat. Nutzer bekennen sich dort in Profilbildern und Beschreibungen nicht nur zur rechtsradikalen Partei NPD, sondern lassen auch ihrer Begeisterung für Adolf Hitler und Ausländerverfolgung freien lauf. Wie Alt schreibt, haben sich bei VK – das in seiner antiquiert wirkenden Aufmachung an Studi- oder SchülerVZ erinnert, auch „Promis“ der „Netznazis“ niedergelassen.

("VK.com was started in Russia and claims to be the fastest-growing social network in Europe. In Germany VK has profited from the flight from Fracebook - by the efforts to clean up the network in view of the wave of hate that had begun. For the platform appears to be infiltrated by right-wing groups, as the journalist Chrisitan Alt has discovered.  The users not only use their profiles to announce their loyalty to the right-wing extremist party NPD, but also openly express their enthusiasm for Adolf Hitler and their hatred of foreigners. The most prominent "Net Nazis" have found a home at VK.")

VKontakte was started by the young Internet entrepreneur Pavel Durov, but in 2014 he lost control of it to a group allied with Vladimir Putin: 

Russian president Vladimir Putin has essentially taken control of VKontakte, the home-grown Russian social network which is that country's version of Facebook.The founder and CEO, 29-year-old Pavel Durov, posted on his VK page that he had finally given up control of the company to two investors allied with Putin, Buzzfeed reported:Generally, Putin has maintained his control of Russia by allowing his allies to control vast chunks of the economy, like Rosneft. This appears to be an extension of that control into social media.Durov come into conflict with the Putin regime back in December, when he refused a request by the FSB (the agency that replaced the KGB) to use VK to spy on its citiziens, according to Bloomberg.

Among the many neo-Nazi profiles on VK.com I found this one (click on image to enlarge):

Comments

[sol1]

The fake "Anonymous" page by Mario Rönsch has also moved to VK:

"Jetzt anmelden und Anonymous auch in Zukunft unzensiert genießen. In Russland nimmt man auch den Datenschutz ernst."

https://de-de.facebook.com/Anonymous.Kollektiv/posts/1039795642733562

[koogleschreiber]

Nice screenshot. Large-scale surprise military exercises close to Turkey (the 'imaginary enemy'). Everything that's bad for Europe is good for Russia and everything that's bad for Merkel is even better. Like creating more refugees in Syria. Would Europe be ready to defend Turkey against a Russian aggression? I'm old enough to remember military exercises like this in the cold war. But in these days, the Russians never went into details of their exercises like they do today. Glasnost à la Putin...

[George]

I think this site need more improvement like every other site..