Scandal with censorship in social networks: Ukrainian party European Solidarity demands report from SBU head

This was reported by the co-chair of the faction, Iryna Herashchenko.

"This scandal has not yet been 'noticed' by the marathon and other media outlets that have been fed by Bankova. But it cannot be silenced, because the story is too serious. CNN was the first to report that the SBU had set up their FBI colleagues and tried to introduce political censorship on the Internet under the pretext of war with Russia. As it turned out, the Ukrainian authorities were so keen on cleansing the information field that they decided to clear social media of criticism as well," she said.

"Under the pretext of the war, the SBU appealed to its American colleagues from the FBI with a seemingly noble request to close anti-Russian pages on social networks - Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Twitter. But instead of openly propagandistic false accounts, the lists included authors critical of the authorities," Herashchenko adds.

"There is a real scandal in the United States and a congressional committee is investigating this. The published report of the committee directly refers to censorship at the request of the SBU, "infiltrated by Russian mole agents," the MP emphasized.

"We are talking about March 2022. Bakanov's time. The SBU asks to close pro-Russian accounts. And in May, it provided a list of Ukrainian resources that were allegedly used to divide and "disunite political forces and Ukrainian society as a whole," she said.

Herashchenko recalls that "around this time, the pages of many bloggers critical of the authorities, who had tens and hundreds of thousands of followers, were blocked and disappeared from the network. Some of them were in a shadow bath for months, including representatives of the opposition. There was also a disgusting scandal with the 'Gerasimov bot farm', which still does not exist and the SBU has admitted it."

"We demand that the SBU provide a list of those groups and accounts that 'separated political forces' and explain the motives for their actions. So far, it looks like a complete cleansing of the information field and politicization of the special service," the co-chair of the faction emphasized.

"The TV channels were either forced into a marathon and fed from the budget to make them turn off. And then they went further, using law enforcement agencies, framing our partners, to completely clean up the information space in the country from any criticism... Today, a bunch of bloggers and social media users remain in the shadow ban, writing about corruption in procurement, lies in the marathon, and the government's unpreparedness for war," Herashchenko said.

"The Americans were seriously set up. Among other things, the SBU blocked the official account of the US State Department in Russia. It was also added to the list of resources that pose a security threat. But the problem for the Ukrainian authorities is that the US takes freedom of speech and the constitutional rights of citizens seriously. Therefore, there will be an investigation and they will have to answer," summarized the co-chair of the faction.

A number of TV hosts and popular bloggers noted that pro-Ukrainian pages were indeed deleted after February 24, 2022. TV presenter Olena Kurbanova notes that during this period, three TV channels - Priamyi, Espreso and Channel 5 - were also disconnected from digital broadcasting without any legal grounds.

"The work on checks and filtering was carried out back in 2022, when Bakanov was the head of the Security Service. It is not surprising that pro-Ukrainian pages were included in the list along with propaganda pages. In particular, we are talking about the verified Russian-language page of the US State Department. It is difficult to say whether there were other pro-Ukrainian profiles on the list, but it was during this period that the accounts of many pro-Ukrainian bloggers who were critical of Zelenskyy and his team were deleted. Moreover, on the same dates, for some reason, three news channels were closed on T2: Priamyi, Channel 5 and Espreso. Just a coincidence? Or not? I wonder who will be responsible for this on the Ukrainian side because Bakanov has been dismissed from his post for a year now," Kurbanova states.

On March 5, 2022, the pages of the popular blogger Dmytro Chekalkin were deleted.

"As the congressional investigation found, the FBI gave instructions to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, as well as Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube. On March 2, 2022, Agent Kobzanets sent an email with the subject line "additional accounts received from the SBU that are believed to be involved in disinformation" and which, according to the SBU, are used, among other things, to promote "the separation of political forces and Ukrainian society as a whole." The letter read: "We ask you to block these Facebook pages, as well as the accounts from which they are administered." Already on March 5, my public Facebook and Instagram pages with a total of about 700,000 followers were blocked and eventually completely deleted. Over the past year, other accounts of critics of the government were also blocked, although they are anti-Russian and have always held a clear pro-Ukrainian position. In particular, the group "For Ukraine, for Poroshenko" was deleted, which also had up to 50,000 followers. A significant number of those who criticized the Ukrainian authorities for corruption were subjected to restrictions allegedly for violating the rules and then to a "shadow ban" when their posts were not shown in the news feed for months," Chekalkin said on social media.

"Somehow it happened that during the period (March, April, May 2022) when those requests were being fulfilled especially carefully and without proper verification (even some State Department resources were blocked because the SBU considered them to be spreading Russian propaganda), the social networks of the three channels, Channel 5, Espreso and Priamyi, lost viewers dramatically. It was as if someone had turned off a switch, and it was like a cutoff. Before that, everything was going strong and gaining momentum, the statistics were growing rapidly, and then suddenly - crash! And then we were cut off from T2. Was it a coincidence? I don't know. But when such official reports come from the United States with the results of an inspection of the FBI's work and cooperation with the SBU, you just compare and draw conclusions. Can it really be true?" writes journalist Vitaliy Kovach.

The story of FBI censorship on behalf of the SBU on the Internet

The report of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Special Subcommittee on Arms of the US Federal Government stated that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, in cooperation with the SBU, gave instructions to social networks to censor users' statements on the Internet and delete their accounts.

It was noted that on February 15, 2023, as part of an investigation into the federal government's role in censoring legitimate speech on social media, the Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena to Meta and Alphabet. These are the parent companies of Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube, respectively. In response, they received documents showing that the FBI, on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, demanded and sometimes instructed social media to censor Americans who expressed themselves online.

• The Ukrainian authorities, represented by the SBU, clearly compromised their US counterparts from the FBI and asked them to block Ukrainian, anti-Russian pages on social networks – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and even Twitter

• According to the US Congress, at the beginning of the war, just before Mr. Bakanov's resignation, the FBI cooperated with the SBU in blocking pro-Russian propaganda accounts on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.