Dagestan launches new multilingual social network without pre-moderation

In Dagestan, a project is launched of a new multilingual social network GODUDU.COM, which uses a translation technology that will allow users who speak different languages to communicate with each other in their native languages. According to the designers, the network should become a public discussion platform - a number of Dagestani officials have already opened their posts there. The GODUDU.COM has no pre-moderation.

"The dream of any social network is to attract interesting and popular persons, because of whom users come to the website and subscribe to their intelligence," Kirill Zalipaev, project manager of the GODUDU.COM, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "We have already State Duma Deputies in the network; Rizvan Kurbanov has its page; and we see how demanded it is."

The owner of the page in the new social network will define by him- or herself, to what extent communication with him or her should be kept private.

The project manager assures that the moderator of the website has nothing to do with the content of someone's page. "We don't moderate anything manually; everything is done automatically," Mr Zalipaev has emphasized. "Moderation is only possible, if there are plenty of complaints against the content of some page. It is a standard practice."

Nariman Gadjiev, a well-known Dagestani blogger, is convinced that under no circumstances the officials of Dagestan will create their accounts in the new network. "Our bureaucrats will never do it in their life," he believes. "They should be forced to do it; but everything that is done against one's will isn't sincere. You can imagine what people will write to them! Internet is the easiest place to say the truth," wrote Gadjiev.

Along with that, Nariman Gadjiev noted that top-level officials from the neighbouring republics do not avoid contacts with their people: "Yunus-Bek Evkurov is a public figure; he is not only personally writing in his blog, but he has deliberately switched off the pre-moderation - he has taken an open position. Ramzan Kadyrov takes part in various discussions and makes his comments."

"Arsen Kanokov, head of Kabardino-Balkaria, also leaves his message, but he never takes part in discussions," the blogger continued. "His blog is of no particular interest; I, for example, cannot write anything interesting there because of pre-moderation. However, he is keen on the topic."

Gadjimurad Kamalov, director of the OJSC "Freedom of Speech", also doubts that officials want to take part in all this. In his opinion, the topicality of the website is far from current trends of the business and economy. "So far, social problems and the GODUDU exist in parallel," he believes.

Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of the "Civil Assistance" Committee, believes that today the authorities of Dagestan are trying to fix a dialogue with the population - they have understanding that otherwise a social explosion is possible. "Communicating via a social network is one of the ways of such dialogue," says Svetlana. "If it will be the case, we can only be happy."