Media: social media posts supporting Putin were made from accounts of deceased persons
The identity of some accounts on VKontakte, the popular online Russian social media site, that posted messages in support of Vladimir Putin with the hashtag #PutinKrut [PutinTough] had been stolen, a press service of the company told Novaya Gazeta newspaper, on Sunday, December 17th.
The social media site’s representatives stressed that VKontakte immediately blocked the hacked accounts. “We continue to improve our tools to prevent account hacking and the straightforward blocking of the accounts whose identity had been stolen,” the press service stated.
Earlier, Znak.com news website reported that the online flashmob with the hashtag #PutinKrut [PutinTough] was run in the VKontakte social media using accounts of users who had passed away. There was a striking similarity among the messages: all the posts contained an image with Putin’s quote from his December 14th press conference. All the posts carried the logo of the Young Guard of United Russia, a pro-government political organization for youth.
Those “users” actively posted the aforesaid messages in regional groups such as Podslushano.Akbulak, Typical Dzhalil, Typical Livny, Podslushano Tikhvin, and others.
According to Znak.com, the posts under the hashtag #PutinKrut [PutinTough] were part of an online media campaign organized by the Young Guard of United Russia aimed at drawing attention to Putin’s press conference. The Press Secretary for the organization, Anna Rogacheva, has not provided any responses to requests from the media.