The Facebook account of the well-known Ukrainian blogger and journalist Mykola Sukhomlyn has disappeared. His account was a bulletin board for political jokes, a collection of political cartoons from the Internet, as well as audio and video parodies of Ukrainian political figures. Quite recently he reacted to an article titled “The Governor of Donetsk Oblast Suggests People Start Raising Money to Build Roads” by publishing a video on his page. The video featured Governor Anatolii Blyzniuk driving around in a Mercedes S-class, which costs north of 700,000 hryvnias.
According to the blogger, soon afterwards he began to receive threats and recommendations to remove the video and “hold back his ardor concerning Ukrainian politicians.” Soon the “advice” acquired a more categorical character. An anonymous caller informed Sukhomlyn that they would find a way to “keep him in check.” The Day contacted Mykola SUKHOMLYN and asked him to comment on the recent developments:
“It is not the first time that an account has been removed because of someone’s complaints. If you take Russia, the process was even tougher there. As far as Ukraine goes, there is the case of the removal of FEMEN’s page. The account was only renewed after the interference of European journalists and the EU community, when the case had become ‘the talk of the town.’
“If it had happened to another person — and more than a million people are using Facebook in Ukraine — it seems that there might have been no other reaction, no repercussions other than a letter to the administration.”
Has there been any reaction to the removal of your page on the part of Ukrainian journalists and the public?
“I can definitely say that it sent ripples not only through Facebook, but other social networks as well. Besides, it is quite hard to draw a line between today’s journalists and social networks. They are also bloggers, in fact. So the reaction here was instant. Lots of texts were shared in blogs on well-known sites.
“We also know that this was not the sole attempt to oppress bloggers. There have also been summons to the SBU. Not so long ago I said that we are very lucky to have a regime which still has a very dim view of social networks. That’s why we have not yet felt massive pressure on the social media. Lots of people wrote me letters of support or left comments on Facebook. I recently spoke with the independent media trade union about the possibility of sending official letters.”
What was there on your page, that it drew such a wide response?
“There was no prejudice against or singling out of specific politicians. One could say that this account had become the prime site for political satire on Facebook. What was the reason for the success of this account, which definitely had no special political ground or goal?
“When you make witty, whole-hearted jests on political subjects, they are sure to become popular, and they will be shared and passed on. Unlike other accounts, which were updated twice a day, I had been active without breaks virtually 24/7 for two years. The removal of the account involves the removal of several thousand jokes, a huge base of cartoons, videos, demotivators, etc. And another thing: the account was linked to the page of a group named ‘On Politics with Humor.’ It had a completely different audience, which never overlapped with this account. The group MediaUkraine has also been deleted. It brought together 1,200 journalists who would regularly be updated on the news and provided with announcements of upcoming events, contests, and other professional activities.”
On the Internet I came across such conspicuous headlines like Censorship Comes to Facebook. What do you think needs to be done to stop some people from pestering journalists and preventing them from publishing information in social networks or elsewhere on the Internet?
“I think it’s worth creating free web-pages on such free blog services as Wordpress. These pages are free from moderation and censorship, and they are quite hard to remove. Where there is censorship and certain rules, and where you cannot speak with the administrators in real time, it is easy to find quite a lot of causes against you. It is quite tricky to prove that the situation is politically motivated.
“Speaking of censorship in general, that is, the ways of overcoming it — the opposition, for one, is actively exploring the Internet. Quite recently Yulia Tymoshenko got a Twitter account. Other MPs, such as Volodymyr Ariev, Andrii Shevchenko, Oles Donii, Lesia Orobets, and Oleh Liashko, are also known to operate in social networks with ease. Therefore, political technologists are going to closely scrutinize the blogosphere before the next elections. Censorship will find its second wind. We shouldn’t forget that trolling [the practice of posting offensive or off-topic posts within a given community or forum. – Ed.] is its wide-spread form. Little is spoken of it today, but virtually all major information resources have their own trolls — yes-men who praise, comment on, or ‘destroy’ information. With time, even better-prepared special services will arise in Ukraine and monitor the contents of social networks.”
