The team of the Kropyvnytskyi-based regional newspaper Kirovohradska Pravda has lost access to their Instagram account, which had over 25,000 followers. The team does not rule out Russian involvement in the incident, owner and chief editor Olena Sidorova told Pavlo Lisnychenko, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Kirovohrad oblast, in an exclusive comment.
Sidorova said that the page had become unavailable late on 16 April and the administrators had been “kicked out” of the profile. The profile page looks empty now, with no followers or posts displayed.
“We have already tried all available login options, but to no avail. Surprisingly, neither two-factor authentication nor other safeguards against hacking worked. We have contacted the tech support and hope to restore access to our page,” said Olena Sidorova.
She added that losing the account is a serious problem for the team, since they have been actively developing this channel for a long time; moreover, the newspaper has obligations to advertisers.
The chief editor said that the news outlet believes the account loss was retaliation for their reporting.
“Since we are a print publication, we actively report war-related news, in particular those related to the military operations and personnel, on social media. We have repeatedly been barraged with critical comments by pro-Russian bots, so we assume that our page getting blocked may be related to this,” she concluded.