The founder of the Russian social networking site VKontakte (VK) Pavel Durov has left Russia, citing tensions with the authorities, he announced today, the day after VK accepted his resignation.
“I am not in Russia, and I have no intention of returning there,” he wrote on the American website TechCrunch, which specializes in information from the technology sector.
“I’m afraid there will be a backlash,” he told TechCrunch. “After I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities, they can’t tolerate me.”.
On Thursday, Durov said that in December he had refused to hand over to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB, formerly the KGB) the personal data of executives of the Euromaidan organization, which had a central position in the pro-European dispute in Ukraine.
"Transferring personal data about Ukrainians to the Russian authorities would not only be against the law, but would also constitute a betrayal of all those millions of Ukrainians who have shown us trust," he explained at the time from his VK page.
The social networking site, which surpasses its American rival Facebook in the former USSR with more than 100 million users, confirmed the mysterious resignation of its founder on Monday. Durov had announced it publicly on April 1, before retracting it the next day, calling it an “April Fool’s Day lie.”.
This resignation sounds negative for the social networking site, the young Russian complained, who emphasized that "unfortunately (the situation in Russia) is incompatible at the moment with Internet businesses.".
For many months, the founder has been in a standoff with the investment fund United Capital Partners (UCP), head of 48% of VK, which accuses him of using VK's resources to create the highly successful instant messaging app Telegram last year, independent of the social networking site.
Russian Internet giant Mail.ru, which supports Durov and owns the remaining 52% of the capital, announced today that it “does not consider Pavel Durov’s resignation from the position of CEO a fait accompli.”.
Source: planet-greece.blogspot.com
