Russian social network VKontakte says Islamic State accounts blocked

Russian social network VKontakte (VK) has blocked accounts opened by Islamic militant group Islamist State (IS), a VK spokesman said on Monday.

"Some of the groups of this organization on VK have been blocked. If any new groups violate the rules of the social network and laws of the Russian Federation, they will also be blocked routinely," Georgy Lobushkin told Interfax.

Lobushkin said that, as far as the VK management was aware, IS had not opened any new accounts on VK. Nor had VK received any orders from law enforcement to block any supposed IS accounts, he said.

Earlier, the BBC had said IS branches in Syria and Iraq had set up pages on VK.

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