The Dark Side of VK.com

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[indoor_pet]

This is so interesting to me how people from non-russian speaking countries view vk. I'm from Ukraine, moved to Canada when I was 13, now I'm 24. I had multiple vk accounts, I made very first one when I was 10, one of my classmates somehow got access to it and filled it with porn. When I was around 15-17 I clearly remember stumbling across CP all the time. People would attach uncensored photos to comments on popular groups as a way to show what they can sell. They would get banned eventually, but sometimes those comments were there for months. Right now it's very different, it really depends on who you have added as your friends, what groups you follow, what you like. I also met my fiancé on there

[Nedread]

10:10 Slightly off topic, but I love when hateful people are cowards and hide their faces behind balaclavas/ski-masks/regular masks. Don't dish it if you can't take it.

[gerblansky]

Thank you for the video! As a Russian I have using VK for a long time, but from middle 2010s censorship become a big problem. A few people were percecuted because of innocent posts and even memes about chrictianity (Maria Motuznaya is the well-known example). After Russian invasion in Ukraine it got worse. Anti-war activists can't use VK as a platform to speech because of danger of arest. People like Victoria Petrova and Olga Smirnova were arested because of this

[RagerQueen]

I actually use this place occasionally. Russian and Chinese video hosting websites seem to have absolutely no copyright laws so they're very useful to find pirated content.

[laniakeas]

Wow
I'm from Russia and it's so refreshing to see content of such type from foreign youtubers. Thank you so much

[ca_lcium]

My mother uses VK because she's so insanely racist she keeps getting banned on Facebook... 😂

[waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

There's one major one I think you may have missed, and that is the gargantuan amount of pro-ED content that exists on VK. I've seen non-Russian speakers flock to this very region-specific platform just to get access to pro-ED spaces, either for personal viewing or worse, for targeting and interacting with mentally ill, vulnerable users. I guess you could compare it to something like 2013-era Tumblr, but the difference is that Tumblr has at least long banned all and any tags related to this type of triggering content, while VK couldn't give less of a crap to this day. And it's mostly kids aged 11-16 who frequent these spaces. I can't fathom just how much harm this has done over the years, considering much of my own youth was uselessly spent browsing that content all day, every day.

[fovexes]

I've always been fascinated by the Blue Whale challenge. There's even a movie that's been doing rounds at some film festivals but it's in Russian and doesn't have any plans to release in the US.

[dearharuharu]

my personal experience with VK is it's the only place on the entire internet that i was able to find download for this incredibly obscure album from an ex-member of my favorite band. the downloaded file was a single mp3 file that's 50 min long, and the quality was awful, but at least i get to hear this music that maybe 3 other people on this earth has listened to lmao (the album was rubbish btw)

[MissSallyB]

brb, stocking up on popcorn for when you do The Dark Side of Tumblr...

[Rooftopaccessorizer]

Fascinating that right wing extremism is just the exact same type of person no matter where in the world it is

[theMyRadiowasTaken]

a 22 minute video uploaded right as im eating dinner? must be my lucky day! :D

[shineefive]

love ur vids! id love deep dives on dark sides of older internet communities like myspace, geocities etc as well as newer ones, i love the old internet

[Robocopnik]

The "smoke bucket" thing just sounds like a gravity bong, that's a pretty normal thing, I'm pretty sure.

[ThomasTheCure]

I'm ALL IN on this new series idea

[no_peace]

"we don't allow illegal content" doesn't quite cut it in a country with a government that is anti gay

[offtopya]

I used and currently occasionally use VK as a Russian person. I’m really glad this is brought to light

[szabolcstoth]

It's so interesting to me how someone from England(i'm not sure, sorry for the assumption) really missed the whole epidemic of Blue Whale in Middle-Europe.
I was 9 years old when the Blue Whale challange took off, and it was everywhere. We were taught in schools about it, our parents told hour long talks about it every week, it was all around the news, etc...
It was clearly a giant thing that didn't just "allegedly" took lives.
A few weeks ago me and my friends actually remembered it, and talked about it. One of my friends was out in the USA during that time, and they NEVER heard of BW as it has cooled off when they came back to our country.
I do not blame you for underastimating the Blue Whale situation, i merely just wanted to talk about my experience with the application.
Love your content, keep up:D

[lutherhrgrvsbf]

Haven’t even started the video yet but just the name unlocked a repressed memory that I feel like sharing: me and a bunch of my online friends got catfished and scammed by people pretending to be famous pop-punk/emo musicians on this site when we were like 13 lol

[emo_penguin]

All you had to say was the creator wears all black and identifies as a libertarian and I knew he was a wacko.