Is it complicity: why VKontakte helps imprison its users

The Ministry of Internal Affairs continues to churn out criminal cases for memes and reposts. Most often, they are prosecuted under Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code for inciting hatred or enmity - according to the Judicial Department, last year 460 people were convicted under this section in Russia. Recently, Vladimir Putin proposed decriminalizing Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code - perhaps criminal liability under it will only arise after a repeated violation committed within a year. For the first violation, administrative cases will be opened against users of social networks. Even if the amendments to the law are approved, at least seven more articles will remain in the Criminal Code under which a person can be imprisoned for words on the Internet.

What is a private profile?

A private profile is a profile that displays a minimum of information about you: first name, last name, avatar preview and a list of mutual friends. If you wish, you can show more data: status, city, age, place of work. Content and other information are automatically closed. A private profile can only be seen by your friends.

Image: VKontakte press service

How to close a page in VK?

We analyze the process first in the full version, working from a computer, then through an application on the phone.

We work from a computer

Now open the menu in the upper right corner and select “Settings” there. In the next step, open the “Privacy” tab and scroll the page to the very bottom. Here we need the “Profile Type” block. Expand the menu and select “Private”.

A pop-up window will appear asking you if you want to make the page private. We agree by clicking on the “Yes, close” button.

Note. After these steps, many privacy settings will automatically change, limiting access to your data.

Now from your phone

Regardless of whether you are working on an Android smartphone or an iPhone, the process will be similar.

Let's launch the application. If you have not registered yet, do so and log in. In the event that you have forgotten your credentials, our instructions will help you - what to do if you forgot your VKontakte login and password?

After successful login, open the menu in the lower right corner of the screen. On the next page, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner. You will be taken to the Settings section. Here, open the “Privacy” item. Scroll to the very bottom of the page, to the “Private Profile” block. And set the switch to Enabled mode.

You will again be asked to confirm the operation - to do this, click on the “Yes” button in the window that appears.

What information is being hidden?

Here is the list provided by the social network itself:

Wall;
Photos;
Video recordings;
Music;
Subscriptions to users and pages;
List of communities you are subscribed to;
"Stories";
Present;
Family status;
Relatives;
Contact information - phone number, email address, links to profiles on other social networks;
Education;
Career;
Life position;
Personal information.

Reasons for blocking VK pages

The topic of today's article can be divided into two options, which intersect with each other in terms of reasons and some other features. In both situations, the blocking is temporary or permanent. We talked about removing the first type of freeze in another instruction on the site, while you won’t be able to get rid of the “perpetual ban”.

Note: In all cases, the type of blocking will be indicated when visiting the blocked page.

Option 1: Account

There are quite a few reasons for this incident to block a personal user page. We'll rank them in order from most common to rarest.

Sending many similar messages to other social network users. These actions are regarded as spam and often lead to immediate blocking of the page for an indefinite period.

So will changes solve the problem?

Unclear. On the one hand, the fact that the social network gives you more flexibility in managing your own data and privacy settings is a big plus. On the other hand, the company did not respond to complaints with non-transparent provision of information to law enforcement agencies.

For now, VKontakte promises that it will soon launch a special section in which it will tell how exactly it works with user data, what information and in what cases it transfers to law enforcement agencies, and will also reveal statistics on requests from government agencies.

Another point is the process of deleting pages and user data. Now the social network gives you 7 months so that you can instantly restore the page - and for all 7 months your data is stored on the social network’s servers. It is unclear whether this data is deleted in principle: as Belarusian activist Christian Shinkevich found out, the social network stores all data about the user, including deleted content and personal correspondence.

Reluctance to share personal information with strangers

In turn, ordinary users often do not want to expose their lives to the whole world. As a rule, people share personal photos and recordings only with their acquaintances, friends and family. Any social network has a variety of privacy settings, but you can completely restrict access to a page only by closing your account.

In addition, this solution helps protect against scammers who copy the user’s information, create a copy of the page and write to the user’s friends asking for a loan. Also, a private profile is a great way to stop the haters you might encounter on the social network: an aggressive user simply won’t be able to get personal.

How to close a VKontakte profile in 2021 - instructions for beginners

Hello dear readers. In our article today you will learn how to close your VKontakte profile.

Nowadays it is difficult to meet a person who does not use social networks. The purposes of use are different, some are looking for entertaining content, viewing various pictures, articles or videos to lift their spirits, some are mastering or learning about various fields of activity, and some simply like to view new information about acquaintances or friends, or follow famous and interesting personalities, read news about them.

Viewing the lives of other people is a very entertaining process, but another question arises: what if the user does not want other, strangers to see information about him, and also openly reveal his personality to the world. Today we’ll talk about how to properly use privacy settings on social networks and figure out what they are.

In Russia now the most popular social network is VKontakte, and it is this network that will be discussed.

In order to hide your page, you will need to resort to a few simple steps.

Let's start by choosing privacy settings using a personal computer.

In the upper right corner, find your avatar and name there, click and go to settings.

Next, on the right side, select the “Privacy” section.

Afterwards, we carefully read the points and set up access separately for each.

The key values for hiding information will be “Only me” or “Only friends”.

There are also several other useful functions in the other section:

“Who can see my page on the Internet” – this item is responsible for displaying your page when searching on the Internet, for example, if you enter your first and last name or personal id address into the search bar.
“What updates do my friends see in the news” - accordingly, you can hide the display of some updates in the news feed for your friends, for example, added photos or videos.
Profile Type is a quick way to automatically restrict information for users who are not on your friends list. There are two types, the first is open, it provides all information about you and your updates in the public domain, the second is closed, which is the opposite of the first.
“Which companies can send me messages by phone number” - I advise everyone to use this function and limit access to this type of activity. This will allow you to avoid various types of spam and advertising messages on your mobile device.

After completing the privacy settings, at the very bottom of the page, click on the button “see how other users see your page” in order to make sure that your choice is correct.

Selecting privacy settings using a mobile device.

There is also the possibility of privacy settings directly in the mobile application. It doesn't matter whether it's Android or iOS.

The process itself is not much different, except for the interface. Therefore, the step-by-step instructions are the same as in the case of a personal computer. Don’t forget to confirm the changes in both cases.

The procedure is the reverse of closure. We use the same instructions as in the previous case, only we do it in reverse.

It is also accessible from both a computer and a mobile device. Everything is banal and simple.

When asking this question, you should know one thing for sure - there are no technical ways to achieve such a goal.

Often people exhibit such a quality as curiosity, especially about the hidden and secret. It’s not without reason that they say that forbidden fruit is always sweeter.

Remember, the only way to gain access to the information of a user who has restricted it is to obtain it from the user himself. The simplest option to achieve the goal would be for the user to add you to his friends list, but this is not the only one, there are also various types of scams and similar actions.

If you turn to the World Wide Web with a request to view a private profile, then, most likely, you will most likely come across attackers who undertake to provide information, but with one condition - you will need to log in to their website. Thus, you yourself become a victim of scammers. Once logged in, they gain access to your social network page rather than providing information about another one. Don't fall for the scammer!

To summarize all of the above, it is worth thinking about such an important thing as personal space and information. You shouldn’t advertise everywhere about how you live, where, with whom, and the like. Such data can not only cause envy and a wave of discussions, but also be used against you. Always think about what information you make public, especially when there are ways to preserve it and hide it from outsiders.

What's happened

In January 2021, VKontakte provided the Center for Countering Extremism with information about activists from Alexei Navalny’s headquarters in Ufa. From the social network’s email correspondence with an employee, it follows that law enforcement officers requested information without a court decision or an investigator’s order. And VKontakte satisfied their request, providing the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the time and date of creation of the activists’ pages, their telephone numbers, email addresses, as well as the IP addresses from which the pages were created and from which users accessed it. At the end of the response letter, the social network asked law enforcement officers to duplicate the original requests to the official mailing address.

Oh, and let someone else from VK tell us how they respond only to legitimate requests by court order, cannot disclose anything because of the “secrecy of the investigation” and meet the established deadlines? Look how lovely it is, especially the note at the end. pic.twitter.com/iQVYocTh5w
— Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) August 17, 2018

The VKontakte press service hastened to justify itself by saying that the administration simply had no choice - according to Russian law, it is obliged to provide the authorities with all the information they are interested in. A representative of the social network noted that interaction with law enforcement takes place officially; the VKontakte security service always checks every request and requires the provision of all documents through official channels. According to him, in this case, an official written request was received.

In the summer, it became known about several criminal cases for memes in the Altai Territory. 23-year-old resident of Barnaul Maria Motuznaya, a defendant in one of these cases, was accused of insulting the feelings of believers and inciting hatred or enmity due to the publication of pictures with Patriarch Kirill on VKontakte. In August, the girl published the data that the social network provided. Thus, VKontakte provided the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the address of Motuznaya’s personal page, the date the page was created, phone number and email address, all the IP addresses from which the girl accessed the network, the dates and times of visits to the page, the history of changes in the username and associated with the page phone numbers, history of calls to the social network support service, as well as blocking history.

VK pic.twitter.com/uQCk6qgvFy
— Frolová (@La72La) August 12, 2018

The VKontakte press service again stated that it could not reject the request due to Russian legislation. At the same time, social network employee Fr. The Ministry of Internal Affairs itself, however, does not agree with this. A source told the Daily Storm that during a pre-investigation check, the request must indicate the article under which it is being investigated and provide a description of the alleged violation. And if a criminal case has already been initiated, the police can provide the social network with the entire plot of the material.

We also know about a case where VKontakte, in addition to other data, handed over to investigators the personal correspondence of its user, a disabled person of the second group from St. Petersburg, Eduard Nikitin. The reason for initiating a case against him was several pictures and comments on the social network. Among them there is, for example, an anecdote in which one of the characters doubts positive changes after the elections. It must be admitted that this time the VKontakte security service provided the investigator with data after the court’s decision.

Response from VKontakte to the Investigative Committee to a request for personal correspondence / Photo: Novaya Gazeta St. Petersburg

Documents confirming VKontakte’s interaction with authorities do not often end up on the Internet. It is unknown how many requests the social network actually processed. At the end of September, Voronezh resident Oleg Balobin was sentenced to two years of suspended imprisonment for video recordings on VKontakte. At the last hearing, the prosecution read out the correspondence between the young man and the girl: the messages allegedly showed that he sympathized with neo-pagan views. It can be assumed that it was VKontakte that provided law enforcement officers with access to messages. The fact of transferring personal correspondence to the authorities may come up in court, and at least the accused themselves will know about it. But cases where a social network reveals IP addresses, mobile phone numbers or times of visits to a page usually remain unknown.

Criminal cases for posts, reposts and likes are most often initiated under Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code on inciting hatred or enmity - according to the Judicial Department, last year 460 people were convicted under this part in Russia. Recently, Vladimir Putin proposed decriminalizing Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code - perhaps criminal liability under it will only arise after a repeated violation committed within a year. For the first violation, administrative cases will be opened against users of social networks. Even if the amendments to the law are approved, at least seven more articles will remain in the Criminal Code under which a person can be imprisoned for words on the Internet.

How to make sure no one knows anything about you?

Put a fake photo on your avatar, delete the specified data and photos, carefully monitor what posts you leave on the wall, create a good impression of yourself or turn into an unremarkable person. But if you think carefully about adhering to this level of confidentiality, you will soon stop using the social network altogether. After all, everything is good in moderation!

Having the knowledge of how to close a VK page from strangers, you can ensure a comfortable existence on the social network on your own terms. But you shouldn’t get too carried away by hiding photographs, music, and films from your friends. The main purpose of a social network is communication and new acquaintances. Have fun!

Who is guilty

In published requests to VKontakte, the Ministry of Internal Affairs refers to paragraph 4 of Article 13 of the Federal Law “On Police,” as well as Articles 6 and 7 of the Federal Law “On Operational-Investigative Activities.” According to these laws, the police do have the right to receive all necessary information, including personal data, not only in the presence of a criminal case or a court decision, but also “in connection with the verification of statements and reports of crimes,” as well as in the presence of “ signs of an unlawful act."

“Signs of an unlawful act” is a very vague concept. According to OVD-Info lawyer Denis Shedov, this phrase can mean literally anything. Does the post spread awareness? Does the police think it incites hatred? In relation to a specific social group? This is enough to obtain all the user's personal data. And VKontakte, according to Russian law, is obliged to provide them to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The social network itself, however, claims that it tried several times to challenge the legality of the requests in court, but for three weeks it was unable to respond to OVD-Info’s request to talk about these cases.

“We are not aware of any cases of such appeal against decisions of VKontakte,” says Sarkis Darbinyan, a lawyer for the RosKomSvoboda project. “Perhaps the social network was doing this, but it did not fall into the public sphere. According to the open database of court verdicts, it is not clear that the social network has ever been involved as a third party. We also don’t see any involvement of VKontakte employees as specialists who can present a different vision of the actions for which the user is being judged.”

At the beginning of October, VKontakte for the first time publicly spoke about the process of processing requests from government agencies with links to all laws that require this interaction. The social network stated that, without a court decision, it is ready to give law enforcement the address of the user’s personal page, the time and IP address of profile registration, mobile phone number, email address, time and IP address of the last password change, history of changing the username and attached mobile phone number , time and IP address of placement of the content specified in the request, history of page blocking and calls to technical support, history and list of IP addresses for entering the page. VKontakte can also transfer personal correspondence to the authorities, but only after an appropriate court decision.

The social network is not going to notify users about requests received regarding them: the Federal Law “On Operational Investigative Activities” recognizes information about “forces, means, sources, methods, plans and results” of an audit as a state secret and prohibits disclosing it to third parties. If a criminal case has already been initiated, informing users about requests from authorities is prohibited by Article 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code on the inadmissibility of disclosing preliminary investigation data.

VKontakte said that it considers requests received not only to the legal mailing address, but also by email. At the same time, law enforcement officers can, according to the social network, provide the original paper request later. This greatly simplifies the process of data transfer and allows authorities to obtain the necessary information much faster than if interaction was carried out exclusively through paper mail.

Illustration: Anastasia Pozhidaeva for OVD-Info

The social network notes that it cannot refuse to provide data to law enforcement due to criminal liability. The company refers to the article on obstruction of justice and the conduct of a preliminary investigation (Article 294 of the Criminal Code), but it refers to “interference” in the activities of a court, investigator or prosecutor.

But they can really accuse VKontakte of an administrative offense; for this there is an article on failure to provide information (Article 19.7 of the Administrative Code). Only the maximum penalty under it is a fine of five hundred rubles for officials and five thousand rubles for legal entities. If a criminal case had already been opened against the user and VKontakte refused to give out information to the investigator or prosecutor, the fine would be higher - up to three thousand rubles for officials and up to one hundred thousand for legal entities under Article 17.7 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.

What may result in criminal liability is the failure to release personal correspondence after a corresponding court decision: in addition to fines, compulsory and forced labor, Article 315 of the Criminal Code on failure to comply with a court decision provides for imprisonment for up to two years.