Is it true that VKontakte is being closed? Why won't they close VKontakte? Be careful, VKontakte is closing
The other day an event occurred that, in its potential, could give rise to a revolution. As far as I understand, not in all, but in some regions, access to social network "VKontakte". First, information appeared that the “contact” was included in the “black list” of prohibited sites due to the presence of child pornography, instructions for making drugs and explosives, as well as incitement to suicide.
Later, literally within half an hour, a refutation appeared, claiming that VKontakte ended up on the “black list” by accident, due to the oversight of one employee who allegedly checked the wrong box. What a coincidence!
In fact, this looks like a demonstrative action on the part of the state, like we are so strong and if we want, we will cover your contact with one click. And the knees of ordinary users began to tremble: “What about my selection of great music?”
In addition, this serves as an excellent finishing touch to the scandals that surrounded the creator of the most popular network in Russia and the sale of 48% of the shares to United Capital Partners. The deal itself was allegedly supervised by the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. The government doesn’t like the fact that an uncontrolled social network is operating right before their eyes. Therefore, they are getting closer and closer to her.
In fact, I would only be glad if the contact was closed for some time, at least for a month, and then it was either returned back, or someone created a new similar social network. But this month would bring serious changes to our lives (everyone would start drinking, for example) or, on the contrary, we would do things that are useful, primarily for ourselves, and not for the network.
But the contact will not be closed. They simply cannot close it, and they, like Igor Nikolaev, have five reasons for this...
Firstly, these are huge losses for those who make money on VKontakte, and where there are losses, there is serious unrest and discontent. Who wants to be bombarded with tons of negativity?
Secondly, on the wave of general virtualization (and some are still organizing pickets against globalization), contact, as an already existing and proven site, today is the tool with which you can monitor various processes in society. Who wrote what, how this or that person thinks, what he does - all the data is practically in the public domain. And some people don’t even think about hiding them, but on the contrary, they are even more active.
This is an already existing database where a lot of information has been collected about various people, and no one is forcing these people to virtualize - this is their conscious choice. Why destroy today what tomorrow will be a total instrument of control?
Third, in principle, there is nothing to close it for, porn, instructions for making explosives, drugs and suicide are all over the Internet. It turns out that we should completely ban the use of the Internet?
Fourthly, the closure of VKontakte could really become a catalyst revolution! Because there are enough people in our country who are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. It’s like pain pulsating inside, and contact is a pain reliever. I sat online in the evening, chatted, talked shit, watched something funny, let off some steam, so to speak, and went to bed. Why deprive people of anesthesia?
And finally, fifth, this is what today almost every Internet user is faced with dependence on social networks, and in particular on contact. So closing VKontakte today is the same thing as "no alcohol law", which was introduced in 1985. And this did not lead to anything good, only the production and consumption of surrogate increased significantly. Why make the same mistakes twice?
These are the thoughts that gathered in my head, although maybe everything is much simpler and this is actually the machinations of Zuckerberg?
German Klimenko laughed at the ridiculous spam attack on users of a popular Russian social network
March 6, 2017 could have become a day of sorrow for users of the popular Russian social network VKontakte (since the end of February, a message about its imminent blocking has been spreading on the resource), however, another closure of the site was not destined to happen. Realnoe Vremya decided to look into the situation and collected five facts about the problems of the popular social network.
Why won't March 6 become a “day of mourning”?
Since the end of February, a message has been circulating on the social network VKontakte about the imminent closure of the resource, and on the eve of publications with the same content, spammers posted at a rate of once a minute. The test post names a specific closing date - March 6, 2017 - and the person in charge who made the official statement is German Klimenko, who, according to the authors of the message, is the press secretary of VK (in fact, Klimenko holds the position of Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation for Internet issues).
German Klimenko has already commented on the situation to the press, saying that everyone is openly laughing at this message, and he is not the press secretary of the social network, which, by the way, will not be closed.
Note that even such a clumsy presentation of the message could cause a small surge of panic and increased attention to the news about the closure of the resource. At the same time, users of the social network were frightened by the fact that after VK is blocked, their personal information will be publicly available, and to avoid this, they need to copy this message to their wall.
German Klimenko has already commented on the situation to the press, saying that everyone is openly laughing at this message, and he is not the press secretary of the social network, which, by the way, will not be closed. Photo rosbalt.ru
Accidents in VK data centers and regular failures
Rumors about the impending closure of VK were significantly fueled by a large-scale failure on the social network that occurred at the beginning of this week and lasted for several hours. But it is worth noting that VKontakte, like any other resource, is at risk of becoming unavailable for a number of technical reasons.
In general, in the history of VK there are several major operational failures. One of the most notable occurred on July 25, 2010: the site remained inaccessible for more than four hours due to a power outage in the data center. Another failure occurred on July 27, 2014: then, as a result of an accident in one of the data centers, the site was also unavailable to users.
On August 4, 2015, the VKontakte website remained inaccessible for more than two hours. According to the company's press service, the cause of the problem was a physical break in the cable connecting the data centers. It was later reported that the cause of the failure was “a fatal combination of circumstances.” Increasing cases of VKontakte inaccessibility led to the popularization of the hashtag #vkzhivi on Twitter.
Is it all Pavel Durov's fault?
In addition to the hashtag, the opinion spread among users that regular disruptions began exactly after Pavel Durov left the company. On April 1, 2014, on his VKontakte page, Durov announced that he was leaving the post of general director of the company.
In his appeal, the creator of the social network argued that in 2013, his freedom of action as CEO of VKontakte was greatly reduced. He complained that the principles underlying the social network had become increasingly difficult to defend and that formal positions in the current conditions were of no interest to him. Experts are sure that in this way Durov hinted at serious pressure from the security forces demanding the closure of opposition groups “VK”, censorship and access to personal data of users.
Durov sold his shares to the famous media manager and former CEO of MegaFon Ivan Tavrin, and the entire social network became the property of Mail.Ru Group.
The opinion spread among users that regular disruptions began exactly after Pavel Durov left the company. Photo aif.by
Not the first “closure” in the 10 years of the social network’s existence
The upcoming “closure” of VKontakte will not be the first and certainly not the last in the history of the social network. In 2009, the resource was supposed to be closed by a court decision; in March 2012, Pavel Durov himself allegedly stated that “his brainchild will stop working because managing the site has become too difficult.”
In the vastness of VK there is even a thematic group called “Maybe it’s true, maybe not... VKontakte will be closed,” in which, once a year or six months, panic messages appear that the social network will be closed.
A breeding ground for fakes
VKontakte is a fairly large-scale hotbed of fake news, not only about its closure. As with any social network, fictitious stories of varying degrees are disseminated through VK, which, sometimes without prior verification, end up in the media and are perceived by the population as verified facts.
Similar cases are periodically encountered in the Tatarstan press: just last year, a local publication disseminated the news that during a fire at one of the industrial facilities of the Republic of Tatarstan, a huge piece of concrete ceiling flew from an explosion towards a correctional colony and, when falling, demolished a clock tower with a machine gunner, broke through the fence and the restricted area, and the prisoners allegedly ran away in all directions.
Lina Sarimova
VKontakte Vladislav Tsyplukhin stated that rumors about the closure of this resource are unfounded. “This is all nonsense,” he added. On his VKontakte page, Tsyplukhin also noted that “some idiotic” rumor was born, which had to be refuted. The source of this data remains unknown, but recently a rumor about the closure of VKontakte again spread across the media and blogs. It is reported that the social network will be closed, and a specific date is indicated - March 15. The authorities will close VKontakte due to the refusal of its administration to close opposition groups: we have already written How did the management of VKontakte respond to such a proposal from the FSB? .
In addition, recently the founder of the social network "VKontakte" Pavel Durov posted on his microblog Twitter a summons from the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg, where he was ordered to come to testify about the opposition groups "VKontakte", but he could not appear because he did not have time to read . Soon after this, he sent a letter to the editors of Lenta explaining his attitude to the situation.
There, Durov, in particular, indicated that if the service wants to preserve the domestic Internet industry, then requests to block the opposition are not applicable, including since this means giving a head start to competitors, however, he is not going to become an “icon of liberalism” and considers “talks about voting , elections, rallies and civic position<...>form of mass entertainment, along with discussing football matches and playing Happy Farmer."
Perhaps the panic began after rumors appeared that a new bill has been prepared in Russia obliging the blocking of sites (sites that “promote the use, production, sale of narcotic drugs” and “extremist materials” will also be included in the unified database of Internet threats) upon request regulatory authorities.
The Safe Internet League, together with businesses and officials, has prepared a bill obliging operators to block sites with illegal content. The project pursues a good goal - the fight against child pornography, but can lead to the emergence of full-fledged Internet censorship.
However, the bill deals not only with sites with child porn - sites that “promote the use, production, sale of narcotic drugs” and “extremist materials” will also be included in the unified database of Internet threats. Operators will be required to block such sites “based on the decision of the federal body exercising supervisory functions in the communications sector to include the site in a unified database of Internet threats, that is, Roskomnadzor.
The league is starting its fight against child porn with Yandex. The search engine refuses to remove relevant images and links from the search results, Davydov explains: “We contacted Yandex with a request to filter such content, but the company refused, citing the fact that there is no corresponding law in Russia.”
We managed to come to an agreement with the search engine, but the social network "In contact with" itself has undertaken to regularly clean the content, and Mail.ru pages are moderated by special people.
Last weekend, VKontakte users heatedly discussed the closure of the social network.
The reason for the panic was a letter that one of the social network users published on his wall. He wrote that on Monday VKontakte will be completely deleted, and all user data will become publicly available. “Therefore, all users of this social network are recommended to post a similar “privacy notice” on their pages... This communique notifies VKontakte that disclosure, copying, distribution of my personal information or any other illegal actions in relation to my profile on the social network is strictly prohibited.” , - wrote one of the users.
End of VKontakte
After this, the message began to spread massively on social networks with the hashtags #Bring BackDurov #vk_live #VkNeBenet.
Many claim that this is all a lie and someone’s stupid joke. Moreover, such messages about the closure of the network have been circulating for several years. In addition, according to users, VKontakte is a profitable project, so it will not be closed.
Popularity of VKontakte
VKontakte is the most popular social network in Russia. Its monthly audience in March 2015 amounted to 53 million 600 thousand people. In second place are Odnoklassniki (38 million 700 thousand users), in third place is Facebook with 23 million 700 thousand users, and in fourth place is “My World” (23 million 700 thousand people).
They appeared in Krasnodar and quickly spread through specific circles. The story is this: elections to the State Duma took place and one beloved party did not like the way the “fair” elections were covered on social networks. On Channel One they tell one thing, but on VKontakte they honestly write about cases of arbitrariness.
Is it true that VKontakte will be closed?
Well, work has begun to suppress unnecessary activity. Under the pretext of fighting piracy, they will first close audio recordings, then they will take away videos, then they will begin to block groups and public pages under the pretext of fighting extremism and child suicide. By the fall of 2017, there will be little left of VK. The final closure of VKontakte should take place before the presidential elections, that is, by 2018.
Experts reacted to the news with skepticism. The fact is that Pavel Durov, with whom the special services were unable to reach an agreement on closing down opposition groups, left the company a long time ago and now VKontakte is controlled by a pro-government oligarch, so there is no way - everything will be blocked quickly and quietly. Secondly, there are many more VKontakte users than citizens going to the polls, and the closure of the social network could result in truly massive discontent.
VK will be closed for Ukrainians too
Ukrainian authorities believe that the Russian social network VKontakte threatens the country's security. The arguments are simple and logical: Ukrainians post dossiers on themselves, and they are stored on the territory of another state, which the Ukrainian authorities consider hostile. Do you need to solve the problem? Necessary! VKontakte will be closed in Ukraine. Sooner or later, but it will happen.
Is it true that VKontakte will be closed on Monday?
No it is not true. The blow will be struck at the most unexpected and inopportune moment, when the contactees are sleeping peacefully. We woke up, and lo and behold: VKontakte is just like that. Where should I post my shitty photos? Where can I write all the nonsense that Kontaktik has been filling with for many years? Can you imagine the drama? The heart of a contactee may not be able to stand it.
VKontakte has already been closed in Ukraine
On April 28, 2017, a decision was made by the National Security and Defense Council to block VKontakte on the territory of Ukraine. Poroshenko signed the decree. The document prescribes blocking access to VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Mail.Ru and Yandex. Thus, Ukrainian VKontakteers are going through the woods.
Secrets of VKontakte
A selection of interesting facts about your favorite social network:
- Did you know that there are some but none of them give a 100% guarantee? VKontakte is invincible!
- Every year it becomes more and more difficult Why do you think? The answer will surprise you.
- Did you know that it is only thanks to this that the social network pleases us with stable work and high productivity. If VKontakte servers were on Windows, then the social network would have been polluted with viruses long ago and would have crashed every other day.
- Experts tried
- The most popular video for adults on VKontakte is from Maria Evdokimova.
- At her aunt's, She describes the torment she had to go through before the stupid VK admins restored her access. Shock!
- What happens if you guess the password for someone else’s VKontakte page and log in? They will immediately solder 2 articles of the Criminal Code and give you a two-room coin.
07:00, 02.03.2017 47
German Klimenko laughed at the ridiculous spam attack on users of a popular Russian social network
March 6, 2017 could have become a day of sorrow for users of the popular Russian social network VKontakte (since the end of February, a message about its imminent blocking has been spreading on the resource), however, another closure of the site was not destined to happen. Realnoe Vremya decided to look into the situation and collected five facts about the problems of the popular social network.
Why won't March 6 become a “day of mourning”?
Since the end of February, a message has been circulating on the social network VKontakte about the imminent closure of the resource, and on the eve of publications with the same content, spammers posted at a rate of once a minute. The test post names a specific closing date - March 6, 2017 - and the person in charge who made the official statement is German Klimenko, who, according to the authors of the message, is the press secretary of VK (in fact, Klimenko holds the position of Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation for Internet issues).
German Klimenko has already commented on the situation to the press, saying that everyone is openly laughing at this message, and he is not the press secretary of the social network, which, by the way, will not be closed.
Note that even such a clumsy presentation of the message could cause a small surge of panic and increased attention to the news about the closure of the resource. At the same time, users of the social network were frightened by the fact that after VK is blocked, their personal information will be publicly available, and to avoid this, they need to copy this message to their wall.
German Klimenko has already commented on the situation to the press, saying that everyone is openly laughing at this message, and he is not the press secretary of the social network, which, by the way, will not be closed. Photo rosbalt.ru
Accidents in VK data centers and regular failures
Rumors about the impending closure of VK were significantly fueled by a large-scale failure on the social network that occurred at the beginning of this week and lasted for several hours. But it is worth noting that VKontakte, like any other resource, is at risk of becoming unavailable for a number of technical reasons.
In general, in the history of VK there are several major operational failures. One of the most notable occurred on July 25, 2010: the site remained inaccessible for more than four hours due to a power outage in the data center. Another failure occurred on July 27, 2014: then, as a result of an accident in one of the data centers, the site was also unavailable to users.
On August 4, 2015, the VKontakte website remained inaccessible for more than two hours. According to the company's press service, the cause of the problem was a physical break in the cable connecting the data centers. It was later reported that the cause of the failure was “a fatal combination of circumstances.” Increasing cases of VKontakte inaccessibility led to the popularization of the hashtag #vkzhivi on Twitter.
Is it all Pavel Durov's fault?
In addition to the hashtag, the opinion spread among users that regular disruptions began exactly after Pavel Durov left the company. On April 1, 2014, on his VKontakte page, Durov announced that he was leaving the post of general director of the company.
In his appeal, the creator of the social network argued that in 2013, his freedom of action as CEO of VKontakte was greatly reduced. He complained that the principles underlying the social network had become increasingly difficult to defend and that formal positions in the current conditions were of no interest to him. Experts are sure that in this way Durov hinted at serious pressure from the security forces demanding the closure of opposition groups “VK”, censorship and access to personal data of users.
Durov sold his shares to the famous media manager and former CEO of MegaFon Ivan Tavrin, and the entire social network became the property of Mail.Ru Group.
The opinion spread among users that regular disruptions began exactly after Pavel Durov left the company. Photo aif.by
Not the first “closure” in the 10 years of the social network’s existence
The upcoming “closure” of VKontakte will not be the first and certainly not the last in the history of the social network. In 2009, the resource was supposed to be closed by a court decision; in March 2012, Pavel Durov himself allegedly stated that “his brainchild will stop working because managing the site has become too difficult.”
In the vastness of VK there is even a thematic group called “Maybe it’s true, maybe not... VKontakte will be closed,” in which, once a year or six months, panic messages appear that the social network will be closed.
A breeding ground for fakes
VKontakte is a fairly large-scale hotbed of fake news, not only about its closure. As with any social network, fictitious stories of varying degrees are disseminated through VK, which, sometimes without prior verification, end up in the media and are perceived by the population as verified facts.
Similar cases are periodically encountered in the Tatarstan press: just last year, a local publication disseminated the news that during a fire at one of the industrial facilities of the Republic of Tatarstan, a huge piece of concrete ceiling flew from an explosion towards a correctional colony and, when falling, demolished a clock tower with a machine gunner, broke through the fence and the restricted area, and the prisoners allegedly ran away in all directions.
The head of the press service of the social network VKontakte, Vladislav Tsyplukhin, said that rumors about the closure of this resource are unfounded. “This is all nonsense,” he added. On his VKontakte page, Tsyplukhin also noted that “some idiotic” rumor was born, which had to be refuted. The source of this data remains unknown, but recently a rumor about the closure of VKontakte again spread across the media and blogs. It is reported that the social network will be closed, and a specific date is indicated - March 15. The authorities will close VKontakte due to the refusal of its administration to close opposition groups: we have already written How did the management of VKontakte respond to such a proposal from the FSB? .
In addition, recently the founder of the social network "VKontakte" Pavel Durov posted on his microblog Twitter a summons from the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg, where he was ordered to come to testify about the opposition groups "VKontakte", but he could not appear because he did not have time to read . Soon after this, he sent a letter to the editors of Lenta explaining his attitude to the situation.
There, Durov, in particular, indicated that if the service wants to preserve the domestic Internet industry, then requests to block the opposition are not applicable, including since this means giving a head start to competitors, however, he is not going to become an “icon of liberalism” and considers “talks about voting , elections, rallies and civic position<...>form of mass entertainment, along with discussing football matches and playing Happy Farmer."
Perhaps the panic began after rumors appeared that a new bill has been prepared in Russia obliging the blocking of sites (sites that “promote the use, production, sale of narcotic drugs” and “extremist materials” will also be included in the unified database of Internet threats) upon request regulatory authorities.
The Safe Internet League, together with businesses and officials, has prepared a bill obliging operators to block sites with illegal content. The project pursues a good goal - the fight against child pornography, but can lead to the emergence of full-fledged Internet censorship.
However, the bill deals not only with sites with child porn - sites that “promote the use, production, sale of narcotic drugs” and “extremist materials” will also be included in the unified database of Internet threats. Operators will be required to block such sites “based on the decision of the federal body exercising supervisory functions in the communications sector to include the site in a unified database of Internet threats, that is, Roskomnadzor.
The league is starting its fight against child porn with Yandex. The search engine refuses to remove relevant images and links from the search results, Davydov explains: “We contacted Yandex with a request to filter such content, but the company refused, citing the fact that there is no corresponding law in Russia.”
We managed to come to an agreement with the search engine, but the social network "In contact with" itself has undertaken to regularly clean the content, and Mail.ru pages are moderated by special people.
Today's social networks pay increased attention to the protection and security of user data stored on them. A number of criminal cases related to the reposting of provocative posts on VK inspired Mail.ru Group to introduce additional protection for the user profile on the VKontakte social network. Since August 31, 2018, VK users have been able to close their profiles from third-party guests, including closing information about people who reposted their posts. Such security measures were not to the liking of many VK users who wanted to gain access to pages that were now closed to them. What to do in such a situation? Below we will look at how you can view a private profile on VK in 2019, and what tools will help us with this.
On August 31, 2018, the social network VKontakte announced the introduction of an option to the VK functionality "closed profile". Now each VK user can select the “Private” profile type in the settings of his page, after which absolutely most of the data from his page will be available only to his friends. A third-party guest who visits such a page will see the user’s name, his avatar, date of birth, place of work, city, number of friends and number of posts. Other data, including a detailed list of friends and posts on the page, will not be available.
Closed profile in the stationary version of VK
This policy, in particular, is due to the fact that previously intelligence services could track people who shared any recording of a dubious nature. The introduction of a closed profile status will not allow Big Brother to easily track those who shared such a post.
And although such an innovation does not inspire great confidence, it will at least partially protect us from the hostility of other VK users.
How to view a private profile on VKontakte
Undoubtedly, not all VK account owners liked such innovations. Many users who want to gain access to a private VK profile have begun to look for ways to view a private account. Despite the fact that the arsenal of such tools is quite limited, below we will consider all the available alternatives.
Add a user as a friend to open a VK account
The first, and easiest, way to view a private VKontakte 2019 profile is to add the desired user as a friend. After your request is approved, most of the information about its page will become available to you, including the necessary confidential data.
If you have a tense relationship with such a user, create a fake page on VK. Choose an attractive avatar (for example, an attractive member of the opposite sex). Fill out the form in a representative manner and send a request to be added as a friend. Usually in such cases the chances of gaining access to a closed VK 2010 page increase significantly.
Ask friends for help
Another option to open a private account in VK is to contact friends (acquaintances) who have the owner of the private profile as a friend. With a sufficient level of friendly relations, they will send you all the necessary information from a closed page, while maintaining your anonymity. Remember that you should only make such a request to people you fully trust. Otherwise, your request may become the property of the author of a closed profile with unpredictable consequences.
Visit the desired user in person
If there is a trusting relationship between you and the owner of a private profile, you can visit his location under any pretext. Get access to his PC and view his private profile in VK 2019. Despite the low probability of this method, you should not completely reset his accounts.
Phishing sites
There are a sufficient number of services on the Internet that promise quick and convenient access to a closed page. Usually they offer you to indicate the ID of the closed page (this ID can be found, for example, using the regvk.com service), and pay some amount for their services. They also require you to enter your username and password (for allegedly accessing the desired page). You enter your data, click on the access activation button, after which nothing happens.
This procedure helps attackers obtain the login and password for your VK account. What they will do with these identifiers next is a rhetorical question. Some block the user’s page and start demanding money for access. The latter merge the received data into some user databases. Still others simply plant a virus on such an account, and it sends out various “chain letters” to all his friends on behalf of the hacked user.
Other similar services (for example, the well-known one) simply do not work with closed profiles, so the effectiveness of their use is deeply questionable.
Resources at the vkontakte.doguran.ru level do not provide any tangible results
Hacker help
On the Internet you can find many advertisements promising to hack any VK page and view a private VK 2019 profile for a certain fee. In most cases, it is quite difficult to verify the qualifications of such “traditional craftsmen”. In this case, it is impossible to guarantee a 100% effect, as well as a guarantee of the return of prepaid funds in case of failure. Therefore, as in the case of phishing sites, you act at your own peril and risk, and it is quite possible that the money you paid will simply disappear without any tangible result.
Conclusion
The appearance of the “Closed Profile” function in the VK option is designed to protect user page data from unwanted leakage of confidential information. It is extremely difficult to obtain such data in the case of a closed profile. Any “holes” that appear are regularly monitored by the VK technical support service and are effectively eliminated. The simplest way to solve the situation is to create a fake page. And also a friend request to the desired user - in many cases, this allows you to view a private profile in VK 2019.
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