Reasons for blocking VKontakte groups: a guide with examples

Sale of prohibited goods and services

Official community administration rules are here.

These goods are subject to bans or restrictions:

• Tobacco products.
• Intimate services.
• Sports betting.
• Gambling games other than poker.
• Intimate products of questionable effect.
• Narcotic substances.
• Website hacking services.
• Cheating social network counters, sending spam and other “black” methods of promotion.

Drugs, cheating and website hacking are prohibited in any form, with the rest there are nuances.

Tobacco products

Advertising and remote sale of tobacco products are prohibited by law. VKontakte interprets it this way: you cannot target tobacco - the ad will not pass moderation - and you cannot place tobacco products in products.

But you can create a group with useful content: talk about types of tobacco, hookahs, smoking pipes, cigars and place links to an online store in it.

Gambling

Online casinos "VKontakte" are completely prohibited. When you go to any page in the search, you will see:

But bookmakers are legalized. Only a few and perhaps temporarily. The measure was adopted for the 2021 FIFA World Cup and should officially support professional sports with royalties.

In legal betting communities you can post products and links to paid services. We also noticed a link to the backup public – this is just in case the community is blocked. But since the end of 2016 it has hardly been updated. This means that the main group works without interruption.

Some poker communities from the search are blocked by individual decisions of the Federal Tax Service for various violations:

But there are communities that work: they sell training courses, organize live and online tournaments.

Why poker? What about other games: blackjack, preference, whist? We asked a lawyer where is the border between gambling and intellectual-commercial games.

Alexey Gorshkov, lawyer at the Pravoved service:

“By law, a game of chance is a risk-based agreement to win, concluded by two or more participants between themselves or with the organizer according to the rules established by the organizer. It follows from this that the signs of gambling are in no way related to its rules and mechanics. Any game can be considered gambling if it: 1) is based on risk and 2) involves winning (and not necessarily monetary).

There have been numerous attempts to recognize poker as a sport. In 2007–2009, this was even possible, but then the Federation’s accreditation was revoked, so advertising on the Internet is prohibited.

The VKontakte rules contain contradictory instructions: the text for community owners contains a clause about the possibility of advertising poker, but the text for advertisers does not. And here the administration indicates that it can remove poker advertising at any time upon the first complaint from regulatory authorities. Therefore, the work of such publics is associated with risks.”

Intimate goods and services

VKontakte prohibits advertising of dubious intimate products. Dietary supplements for increasing potency and libido, drugs for breast enlargement, etc. are mentioned, but there is no complete list and some of the wording is vague. A lawyer comments.

Alexey Gorshkov:

“The word “doubtful” here should be considered in its dictionary meanings. According to the Explanatory Dictionary of S.I. Ozhegov, it means “doubtful, suspicious of something, unverified” and “ambiguous, which can be understood in the opposite sense, not controversial, not obvious.”

Thus, the rules refer to goods of unconfirmed validity. The administration will select them based on the list provided or by analogy with them.”

Targeting the sale of sex toys, condoms and other 18+ products that are not “questionable” is prohibited. The owner of “Condom” Yesenia Shamonina confirms. But you can run a public blog, and if there are no violations, they won’t even block it.

The specificity of communities that work with intimate goods or overlap in topics is that ordinary content can easily fall under this description:

VKontakte does not prohibit communities of interests for adults such as BDSM lovers and swingers.

Having studied the content in thematic groups, we came to the following conclusions:

• It is prohibited to post pornographic videos and demonstrate genitals. But the boundaries are blurred: if it’s not a close-up and “everything is clear, but nothing is visible,” then it’s possible.
• The groups have restrictions for advertisers, but there are advertising posts for sex shops, shibari clubs and other related topics.
• The priority is erotic photographs, which can be considered as an art object.
• The quality requirements for user-generated content are lower, but the content is similar to your own.

What else can they close for?

In 2021, Irkutsk entrepreneur Alexander Nechaev began selling dog meat. Not shawarma made from mongrels, but carcasses of the Korean edible breed Nureongi. Due to user complaints, the VKontakte administration closed the community.

In this regard, the question is: can the administration block a community if the content does not violate the current rules, but users are in favor of the ban for some reason?

We asked legal expert Alexey Gorshkov whether the VKontakte administration could ban advertising of decorative black rabbits if it wanted.

Answer:

“The owner of a social network can set restrictions himself. In the rules for advertisers there is a clause: “The VKontakte administration has the right to change and/or supplement these Rules unilaterally without any special notice.”

By their legal nature, the VKontakte rules are an offer. By registering on the site, you automatically accept them and are obliged to comply with them. Both parties are free to formulate the terms of the contract, unless otherwise provided by law. The VKontakte administration exercises this right and introduces additional restrictions on advertising. The user can agree to the restrictions and use the platform or disagree and not use.”

The history of VKontakte knows other precedents. For example, the mass blocking of LGBT communities for promoting homosexuality among teenagers. The most famous story is the ban in 2015 of a large social project for psychological support of LGBT teenagers, Children-404.

Blocking as hype

A real block or its threat can easily be hyped and end up on the pages of the federal media. It is not surprising that the phrase “blocking the VK community” is often adjacent to the name MDK.

The organizers began hype back in 2014 by mocking the reaction of Internet users to the terrorist attacks in Volgograd and the plane crash in Kazan. Deputies Mikhail Markelov and Valery Trapeznikov responded. The topic went so well that “MDK” later found himself in such stories more than once. Once the public was even blocked for real, for insulting the feelings of believers.

The effect is obvious: in 2014, 6.5 million people subscribed to the group, in 2021 - 7.7 million, today the number of subscribers is approaching 10 million.

Roman Maslennikov, founder of the PR agency Prostor PR and Consulting:

“Explosive PR is all that went into the federal media. If a media person tries to block a popular public page, we are talking about mutual PR. In the case of MDK, the deputy attracted attention by calling for the blocking of a popular group in society. Well, the group receives attention from the authorities.

Smaller communities can also use such schemes. The smaller the community and the more media the “attacker” is, the greater the chance that the action will take off.

Another option is to use the blocking of your community as an explosive PR to make the most of the situation.”

Violations of competition rules

VKontakte has strict requirements for how to manage the community. Topically safe communities are blocked precisely for these reasons.

Briefly:

• VKontakte requires community owners to provide users with high-quality content that meets content expectations.
• VKontakte does not accept the transformation of the community wall into a stream of advertising posts.
• VKontakte does not tolerate black methods of promotion.
• VKontakte does not like it when users’ walls turn into a cemetery of lost repost competitions and communities that are guilty of this.
• VKontakte knows when you promise too much or don't fulfill your publicly made commitments.
• VKontakte does not want you to engage in blatant copy-pasting without links to the original.

Spam distribution

The spread of spam as a reason for blocking a community can mean two situations.

Unsolicited community invitations are sent from your account. Surely you still remember VKontakte 7-8 years ago, when every day you had to remove 5-10 offers to join the community from strangers. Today this mechanic does not work - you can only invite a friend to the community.

Now VKontakte can ban you even for adding friends from your personal page and then inviting them to the community. Moreover, both a personal account and a community.

Situation 2. Spam is sent by third parties on the wall or in discussions.

To prevent the community from getting banned, moderators must regularly clear the wall of spam and remove bots from the group. Groups with cluttered walls are blocking.

Changing the community theme

In January 2021, the community dedicated to the fight against the “Dima Yakovlev Law” switched to a hotter topic - the transfer of St. Isaac's Cathedral to the Russian Orthodox Church. And it was blocked.

Federal Law No. 272-FZ of December 28, 2012, better known as the “Dima Yakovlev Law,” is a law that prohibits entry into the Russian Federation for US citizens involved in violations of the rights of Russian citizens. One of the clauses prohibits the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens.

Even if a new topic is potentially interesting to the assembled audience, and the old one has lost its relevance, simply changing the cover will not work. Create a new community and make an announcement in the old group - this is legal.

The same applies to placing advertisements for other groups or sites in the name or description of the community.

Abuses in advertising

The VKontakte administration has a lot of requirements for advertising publications. Official information here.

VKontakte distinguishes between two types of advertising: native integrations and third-party advertising.

All posts in the photography community are designed in the same style: selection of photos, photographer, city, model (if necessary).

Interested users can immediately follow the link to the photographer’s or model’s account and order the service.

Advantages of native integrations:

• You don’t have to put the “This is an advertisement” mark under the post.
• You can publish a virtually unlimited number of posts.

The VKontakte administration emphasizes that the border between native integration and advertising is very thin. In order not to get blocked, it is recommended to check the compliance of the format with the Administration before posting.

Advertising for a tattoo artist in a body modification community. The entry was submitted without an o, but it has signs of third-party advertising:

• Call to action (“Looking for clients”).
• A call to view sketches in the album on your personal page.
• The cost of the work is indicated.

VKontakte has a reason to block a group or limit the placement of third-party links on the page.

The VKontakte community can publish no more than 5 advertising publications per day, of which no more than 3 were received outside the Market Platform or the VKontakte Advertising Network.

Signs of an advertising message:

• It is marked “Advertising”.
• There are direct calls to action: “We invite you to the master class,” “Click on the link,” “Allow the community to send messages.”
• There is a link to the application, and all the content motivates you to click on it.
• The graphic image has no independent semantic value: it contains the name of the organization and draws attention to the service.

Paradox! The fact of receiving payment is not a sign of advertising. You can publish a post with native advertising for money, and it will not count. Or post it for free - on another community or through friendship with another admin - and it will be advertising.

Community bans for abuse are usually associated with the following violations:

• Incorrect classification of an advertising post as native integration and related violations: there is no “Advertising” mark, the limit has been exceeded.
• Placement of third-party advertising outside the news feed and community link block: in the title, description, videos, albums, etc.
• Placing third-party advertising on the wall.

Violations during competitions

VKontakte competitions: how to get the desired results and not get banned

VKontakte has strict rules, the essence of which can be boiled down to two theses:

• A competition should not be a way to get likes and reposts.
• The competition must be real, with real prizes and winners.

Drawing of tickets for a rock band concert in the public radio station. The prize in the competition corresponds to the theme of the community - tickets for Stas Mikhailov would not be suitable. The competition stimulates the creative thinking of users (“come up with a quatrain on a given topic”), and the rules specify additional conditions: venue of the concert and age category.

The requirements for competitions in which VKontakte virtual objects and any other prizes are awarded differ. If you are giving away sets of stickers, paid gifts, etc., you cannot require participants to like, repost, or join the community. For other prizes these conditions are permitted.

And for these violations the community can be blocked:

• The deadline for completing the competition has not been established or the condition for its completion is the counter readings: the number of likes, reposts or people joining the community.
• The winner is determined by the number of likes or reposts on the user's page. Have you ever had “friends” constantly asking you to repost a post so they could win pizza, earrings, or a horse ride?
• Subscription condition for 2 or more sources. It's a scam and now it doesn't work.
• Condition for subscribing to a personal page. Personal pages are for friends and family, and public pages are for business. And nothing else.
• The prize for the winner is not determined in advance.
• The results of the competition have not been publicly announced.
• The winner of the competition is an account with the characteristics of a bot. The administration can determine its connection with the community owner via IP.

Advertising for a tattoo artist in a group dedicated to body modification. There were two violations in the competition:

• Subscribe to the master's personal page.
• Subscribe to multiple sources.

The community may get banned for holding this competition. Especially considering that almost all draws are carried out with violations.

In our VKontakte group we constantly hold competitions that give good results. Join us, there are only useful prizes and good content.

Overpromises

In July 2021, the “Typical Krasnoyarsk” community was blocked for drawing a 1-room apartment in a new residential complex. Overly generous gifts usually indicate scammers, not philanthropists.

The optimal prize is a small gift on the topic of the community:

• Free photo session in the photography community.
• Handmade bracelet in a group of hand-made lovers.
• A construction set or a gift card in the public toy store.

Contests in which apartments, cars, villas and other expensive prizes are awarded are considered dubious. From the administration's point of view, this is cheating the counters.

A raffle for 5 iPhone 8 Plus smartphones in a public sports forecast is extremely doubtful. In addition, the community contains content that promises users inevitable winnings and large incomes, which is also a violation of the rules for maintaining VKontakte communities.

Content theft

In February 2021, the Buryatia Online information community was temporarily banned. The content in the group consisted almost entirely of copies of news from other sites without links to the source. The news notes that the owners’ complaints were caused not so much by the fact of borrowing as by the categorical refusal of the community administration to provide links.

In January 2021, Texterra encountered illegal copying of its materials.

The complaint did not reach the VKontakte administration; we managed to reach an agreement with Mokselle. The materials continue to be copied, but now with links to the original and an indication of the author.

When preparing the material, we came across offers to buy or exchange the group. Moreover, among them there were groups that committed violations of community administration rules.

Please note that the consequences of such a transaction may fall on you. Posts that are spammy and regularly violate the rules for holding contests and publishing advertising posts may be blocked temporarily or permanently.

Prohibited groups on VKontakte

Dear residents of the Pavlodar region, we urge you to unsubscribe from the groups listed below on the VKontakte social network, because they are prohibited and blocked on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

In case of violation of the law (Articles 453 and 490 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Republic of Kazakhstan), an administrative fine is provided in the amount of 20 MCI to 150 MCI.

Inquiries by phone: 8-7182-620101, 8-707-9620101

Mass blocking

Mass blockings are the main scourge of communities that try to work without disruption. Usually they become a reaction to changes in legislation or the editorial policy of VKontakte.

Mass blocking problems:

• Almost impossible to predict.
• The requirements of the VKontakte administration may be vague and may not contain clear recommendations.
• Unblocking after eliminating violations does not guarantee that the community will not be blocked again after some time.

Witch hunts

Case for getting out of a ban

Input data

Website: Volgograd charity store “DobrYash”.

Blocking period: about 3 weeks, February-March 2021.

Told by: group administrators Victoria Kvitko and Katya Katerinovna.

Reasons for blocking

The main reason: the group came under massive blocking of communities that are engaged in charitable collections for the treatment, sterilization and maintenance of homeless animals.

Formal reason: a personal transfer for the administrator was mistakenly received on the fundraising card. The administrator transferred it to a personal card, which was reflected in the financial report. Suspicion arose that the money was being used for personal purposes.

Unlock

The unban lasted for 3 weeks for 2 reasons.

Firstly, due to inconsistency in the actions of the community administration. According to the rules, only the founder of the community can communicate with the VKontakte administration regarding unban issues. In fact, another admin dealt with financial issues. Due to the fact that the information did not immediately reach the right person and was then transmitted along the chain, it was not immediately possible to figure out the reasons and take action.

Secondly, the VKontakte administration set strict requirements: to provide reports with receipts on receipts and expenditures of funds from donors for the entire existence of the community. It took a lot of time to collect documents.

It turned out to be very difficult to provide the required documents. The received transfers were a return of debt to the community administrator from a third party, who was not in the country at that time. The VKontakte administration was not happy with extracts only from the recipient’s side.

Requirements for charitable communities

• Collect money only on one bank card.
• Provide the constituent documents of the NPO or a scan of the passport of the person who is raising funds.
• Report on expenses for the entire period of accepting charitable donations.
• Constantly maintain albums with reports on the receipt and expenditure of funds.
• Create discussions with income, expenses and donor reports.

For violation of any of these requirements, the charitable community may be blocked. The DobrYash store was unblocked because all the necessary documents were collected.

A number of charitable communities remained under a permanent ban, since it was impossible to provide checks for several years.

Conclusions:

• The VKontakte administration warns in advance about violations and offers to eliminate them. In this case, the community was blocked because they did not receive a response to the request in 8 days. To avoid getting banned, respond to support agents quickly.
• If the group has already been blocked or there is a threat of ban, it is important to understand the essence of the complaint and take action. Don’t waste time calling heavenly punishments on the heads of support agents and emotional opuses in correspondence.
• Restore the group after fixing the problem quickly. In this case, 12 hours after sending the last document was enough.

What to do if a VK group is blocked?

First, you need to find out the exact reason why the group was banned. You can do this by going to the community page from a PC. You will see a message like this:

All the blocking details will be indicated here. If a community is locked for a specific period of time, the time period will also be indicated. If you access the public page from a mobile device, the reason will not be visible. Therefore, do this from the desktop version of the VK website.

Secondly, write to the VKontakte support service. If the offense was not serious, your apology will be enough for the community to be unblocked. Otherwise, you can say goodbye to the group forever. For example, you are unlikely to be banned for cheating subscribers.

It is important to understand that each case is considered individually by the administration of the VKontakte website. For the same offense, in one case the blocking may be lifted, in another case not. It all depends on many different factors, as well as mitigating or aggravating circumstances.

In any case, contacting support will allow you to understand exactly whether communities can be unbanned. If yes, support staff will describe your next steps. If not, they will report that too.

Punishments

Experiment

Objectives of the experiment:

1. Check if VKontakte has automatic blocking tools when creating a community.
2. Assess the speed of the administration’s response to the publication of prohibited content.
3. Assess the response speed and work of the support service when requesting group restoration.

Experiment results:

VKontakte does not have automatic blocking tools when creating a community.

Attention! No real sales were made during the experiment!

At the time of publication of the article, the group has existed for 21 days, the blocking has not been carried out. Note that the search found a fairly large number of active communities where tobacco and smoking accessories are sold.

Hypotheses:

• In order for a community to be blocked, moderators need to draw attention to violations by user complaints.
• More serious violations are required for a community to be banned.

All changes were made at intervals of 2-3 days.

The fast can also be interpreted as a violation of Art. 16 No. 15-FZ. After a single complaint about the image as adult material, there was no quick response from the administration.

Now we're not only publishing the rule-breaking image, but we're also launching a competition with a total prize that would excite only a ninth-grader.

This time, my colleagues and I sent 10 complaints about the image to the moderators, but the community remained working.

There should be a screenshot of the next post in this place, but due to ethical principles we will not publish it. In short, they used explicit pornography – but even here the complaints did not achieve their goal.

Hypotheses based on the experiment results:

1. There is no quick, inevitable punishment even for a large number of gross violations of community administration rules. This is indirectly confirmed by the large number of active search communities that allow similar violations.
2. The probability of blocking depends on the number of user complaints and, accordingly, on the number of subscribers and traffic.
3. In the long term, it is not worth abusing the rules of VKontakte. The more actively a community develops and the more users there are, the higher the risk of getting banned for them.

Comments from the VKontakte administration

1. The moderation service uses a hybrid method. At the first stage, incoming user complaints are manually processed. This usually takes from a few minutes to an hour. At the second stage, machine verification removes copies of prohibited content throughout the social network. True, they didn’t tell us why the experimental community was not blocked in 3 weeks
2. The probability of blocking does not depend on the number of subscribers and traffic, but a large number of complaints about a publication can speed up the decision on it.
3. “The monitoring system uses neural networks to automatically search and block content that violates the rules. It constantly learns and qualitatively improves its algorithms over time.” General words, but the essence is clear: “don’t violate and you won’t be banned.” If you break it, we'll see.

On the computer

Let's start today's instructions with a method for blocking using a personal computer. You can add a person to the blacklist in a VK group using this method:

1. Open a page with the community you own. You will need to find the section " Control» and click on it with the left mouse button. This item is located on the right side of the screen and has a gear-shaped icon.

   

2. You will be redirected to a new page with various settings for the VKontakte group. On the right side of the screen there will be a column with numerous sections. You will need to go to " Participants» by clicking LMB.

   

3. Two new lines will appear on the right side of the screen - “Managers" And "Black list" As the name suggests, we need the second option. Left-click on the item “ Black list».

   

4. Once you do this, a new blacklist page will open. You will need to find the line “ Add to blacklist" This line will have a blue background, so it will be easy to notice. Click directly on it.

   

5. A window will appear in the center of the screen. Find the user you want to block. Next to each person’s name there will be a button “ Block" It is on this that you will need to click with the left mouse button.

   

6. A new window will open in the center of the screen. You will need to select the blocking period, the reason for blocking, and you can also add your comment. Once everything is done, click on the line “ Add to blacklist" It is important to note that you can change the period of blocking and its reason at any time.

   

7. That's all. Now this user will be on the black list of your group on VKontakte. He will no longer be able to view the community page or leave messages in it. It is worth understanding that you can always unblock it, or reduce the blocking period.