Like, share, convict: Russian authorities target social media users

It was a throwaway comment, forgotten almost the minute it was written. Then again, Viktor Krasnov could hardly have predicted the trouble those three words —”God doesn’t exist” — would cause. He couldn’t have imagined that two VKontakte users would file a formal complaint to the authorities, claiming the comment “insulted” them; that police would show up at his apartment in the southern Russia city of Stavropol a year later; that they would charge him with insulting religious feeling; that he would be committed to a mental institution; or that he would lose his business as a result.

“Never in a million years did I think law enforcement would pursue something like that,” he told The Moscow Times.