VKontakte founder and CEO Pavel Durov says he was fired over his resistance to Moscow's efforts to monitor and control access to the popular social media platform.
Russia's version of Mark Zuckerberg,VKontaktefounder and CEO Pavel Durov, is out of a job.
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After what he describes as a long, under-the-carpet battle with Kremlin-linked forces who tried to force him to turn over user data to Russian secret services, Mr. Durov posted on his personal VKontakte pageMonday that he found out from the media that he was fired, and criticized shareholders for not having the "courage" to do it to his face. He added that "complete control" of the mainly Russian-language, Facebook-like social media site is now in the hands of Igor Sechin,the head of the Kremlin-owned oil company Rosneft, and Russia's richest man, metals tycoon Alisher Usmanov.
VKontakte claims to have more than 100 million registered users, primarily in the former Soviet Union, which would make it Europe's biggest social media network.
"Something like this was probably inevitable in Russia, but I am glad that we held out for 7-1/2 years," Durov said. "We accomplished a lot. And some of what we've managed to do cannot be undone."
It's been a long and murky saga.
Durov is a flamboyant and sometimes controversial figure who once threw paper airplanes made of 5,000 ruble notes (about $160) from his office window to see how people in the street would react (it reportedly created pandemonium). About a year ago he was accused in a bizarre hit-and-run incident, in which he allegedly ran over a policeman's foot. He denied it, insisting that he does not even drive a car. While he was under investigation, his partners reportedly sold 48 percent of the company to an investment fund run by a senior executive in the Kremlin oil company Rosneft.
Scrolling down Durov's VKontakte page reveals the milestones of what he says has been his struggle to protect the data of his users.
The rest is here:
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