Facebook targets Roskomnadzor official over hate speech

Facebook has deleted a post written by Maxim Ksenzov, the deputy head of telecom regulator Roskomnadzor. Notably, Ksenzov is the very same official who warned Facebook back in May that the company will face penalties if it does not hand over traffic statistics for popular Russian Facebook users to the Russian government. While Ksenzov’s page may have gotten a lot of clicks after his controversial post, he’s given up his chance of becoming a popular Facebook blogger by deleting his account altogether.

After his post was taken down, Ksenzov disclosed to the media that he had used the pejorative term khokhly in the text. The word is sometimes used by Russians to denote “ethnic Ukrainians” and is considered derogatory. The term originally referred to a traditional Cossack hairstyle featuring a single lock of hair on an otherwise bald head.