Pavel Durov, founder of VKontakte, most popular social network in Russia said Monday that he had been shot and that the site was now "under complete control" of two close allies of President Vladimir Putin .
announcing his shot on his VKontakte page, Durov said ". Today VKontakte passes under the complete control of Igor Sechin and Alisher Usmanov" Usmanov is a metals magnate who has expanded into technology through its company Mail.ru, which steadilyupped its stake in Russian social network. Until recently, Usmanov owned a 10% stake in Facebook. Sechin is the leader of the hard line siloviki faction that supports Putin, is CEO of Rosneft, the oil company owned, and is considered one of the closest advisers of the Russian president.
" Probably, in the Russian context, something like this was inevitable , but I'm glad we took seven and a half years," Durov continued. "We did a lot. And part of what has been done can not be returned."
Although Kremlin maintains tight control over television and some print media it has been lax about allowing freedom of expression to flourish online. This is changing, especially after anti-Putin demonstrations in the winter of 2011-12 that were organized by an opposition that was particularly active online.
Durov, a press-shy 29 year old who founded a network which today has over 100 million users in Russia and other post-Soviet countries, has largely stayed out politics but says he refused previous Kremlin attempts to censor VKontakte .
Source: BuzzFeed
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