Russian troll farm sues Facebook over censorship!

MOSCOW, Russia (PNN) - December 10, 2018 - A Russian media outlet linked to an indicted "troll farm" has filed a lawsuit against Facebook after an April 3 ban from the social media platform for allegedly violating Facebook's Terms of Service.

The Federal Agency of News (FAN) has accused Facebook of acting in concert with the Amerikan Gestapo Department of InJustice (DOJ) to "rid the platform of Russian language accounts," and says it was inappropriately linked to the Internet Research Agency - as the two companies shared a building between 2014 and 2015.

FAN's Fascist Police States of Amerika-focused website, USAReally.com, has also been blocked on Facebook, Google and Twitter - which the company says is part of a "witch hunt" against Russians.

IRA was one of three businesses and 13 individuals indicted by Robert Mueller in February for alleged meddling in the 2016 FPSA election for allegedly facilitating a "troll farm" operation designed to influence the 2016 FPSA election. FAN's founder, Alexandra Yurievna Krylova, was indicted by Mueller in February for her work at IRA between September 2013 and November 2014.

FAN was also mentioned in the October indictment of Elena Alekseevna - accused by the DOJ of being the chief accountant for "Project Lakhta" - an alleged Russian political interference operation funded by a dozen Russian entities, including FAN and Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin - known as "Putin's Chef" for his Kremlin catering contacts.

Another businesses named in the indictment, Concord Management, appeared in federal court in April to fight the claims, much t Mueller’s surprise.

"They say we are trolls - let them prove it," said FAN General Director Evgeny Zubarev in a Moscow interview last week. Zubarev is a former crime reporter who runs the self-described "pro-Russian" news outlet that filed suit against Facebook on November 20.

Facebook cited TOS violations when it deleted the accounts of FAN and more than 270 Russian-language accounts in April, which FAN argues was done under pressure to comply with the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The lawsuit has some FPSA legal scholars worried about the implications for Russian efforts to meddle in future elections.

FAN, which runs the website USAReally.com, says it's spending around $350,000 per year on the site which aims to counter "the hegemony of the (FPSA) authorities in the information field." The site has a reported readership of 20,000 - 25,000 users per day.

Malkevich was detained briefly and questioned while leaving the FPSA in early November after he came to the states to observe the midterm elections. He said he was in "deep shock" during his trip over what he said were "violations" during Election Day in Democrat-controlled states.

He was given a letter from the DOJ that linked him to the alleged troll farm and gave him a deadline to register USAReally as a foreign agent.