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Facebook purge under fire: Russian senator blasts tech titan’s war on free speech

The senator indicated that when it came to violating Russian law, Facebook did not hold such a principled stance

© AP Photo/Thibault Camus

MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/. Facebook may soon see its unbiased and neutral status vanish if it keeps shutting down accounts, which rub the US power elite the wrong way, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee Konstantin Kosachev said on Thursday.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Facebook’s Cybersecurity Policy, said in a statement on Wednesday that the US social network had removed some accounts and pages allegedly tied to Russia and aimed at targeting African countries.

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"Judging by all this," he began, "Facebook intends to eventually forfeit its neutral status, by being involved in a targeted ‘clean-up’ of accounts, which rouse the US power elite’s discontent. There is no other way to explain the removal of three Russian networks of accounts, which were allegedly trying to sway public opinion in African states," Kosachev wrote on his Facebook page.

The senator slammed the tech giant’s ‘far-fetched’ grievances against those deleted resources devoted to Russia’s policy in Africa and local elections, with some of them criticizing French and US policies along with publications by RT and Sputnik news.

"If we are guided by such criteria, then we should delete from the Russian segment of the Internet and Facebook practically all Russian-language resources and private accounts of foreign media and bloggers, who criticize our authorities’ policies. I’m not even talking about the cases where foreign media pages, including Facebook, posted direct instructions for its Russian audience on how to vote or take part in rallies," the senator noted.

Meanwhile, when it came to violating Russian law, Facebook did not hold such a principled stance, the senator indicated. "Well, all American and European media are only in favor of everything good, while the Russian media just have ill will towards poor Africans nations. Who else will protect them from this pernicious influence other than American censors," Kosachev wrote.

The Russian senator pointed out that once again this is just another attempt to pin one’s failures and successes, this time in Africa, on conspiracy theories and bloggers. "We have seen all this during the US election, as well as being spun in Europe, and now it’s Africa’s turn. They are reluctant to recognize that the world’s reality is changing, and it’s much easier to perceive it as 'sabotage' by another group of '13 bloggers' who have turned the tide in another country. And they do believe this," Kosachev stressed.

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