Between January and April 2026, hundreds of news posts by the independent Kazakh media outlets Respublika and BASE were removed from Facebook. The takedowns began after Respublika published a critical analysis of a New Year’s speech by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and come as attacks on the country’s independent media have risen in recent months.

Successive waves of censorship followed. Between 2 January and 30 March, five rounds of takedowns targeted the Facebook account of Irina Petrushova, Respublika’s editor-in-chief, who is based in Europe. Around 100 of her posts were removed on 8 March alone, the same day that over 150 posts disappeared from the Facebook page of BASE, an investigative media outlet co-founded by exiled journalist Nataliia Sadykova, whose husband was assassinated in 2024. Her personal Facebook account was targeted two days later. On 11 March, a Facebook post by the KazTAG news agency was also removed. The following day, several journalists, including Tamara Eslyamova, editor-in-chief of Uralskaya Nedelya, Dinara Yegeubayeva, Assem Zhapisheva and Murat Daniyar, were hit by mass takedowns on their personal pages, which were full of political commentary.

RSF traced these takedowns and identified a pattern: in each case, a copyright complaint was submitted to Meta — Facebook’s parent company — in the name of Giorgio Armani S.p.A., sent with the contact address loreal@sipi[.]sg. When contacted by RSF, L’Oréal said the email address had been “fraudulently used by a third party to issue false reports,” according to the email’s service provider, Authentix. Yet the subcontractor, which is mandated to report online counterfeiting, told RSF that “Neither the email service associated with loreal@sipi[.]sg nor any other Authentix-managed email system was used to submit, verify, or authenticate the fraudulent complaints in question.” This claim raises questions, as RSF tested Facebook’s complaint form and found it requires validation through a code sent to the email address used. Authentix did not respond to RSF’s request for clarification. The service provider had noted to RSF that “Upon becoming aware of the issue, we promptly escalated it to Meta. Based on their response, they have investigated the matter and reinstated all affected profiles and posts.”

“We have serious reasons to believe that these actions are orchestrated by the authorities in Kazakhstan,” Irina Petrushova told RSF. “After our website was blocked in the country last November, these efforts appear aimed at depriving us of the ability to publish important information.” Indeed, the Kazakh authorities have been increasing pressure on online platforms: since 2021, the government has regularly threatened to block social media networks that refuse to remove certain content. This offensive is all the more concerning as a constitutional reform adopted in March strengthened presidential powers and legislative elections are scheduled for this summer.

In mid-April, a new wave of complaints was launched against the Facebook content of BASE, this time in the name of the Indian company Aiplex Software Pvt Ltd and from an email address bearing the name of the company MarkScan, according to the alerts received by BASE. This brought the total number of posts removed from BASE’s Facebook page alone to 545. RSF tried to contact Aiplex, but it remains unreachable. Messages sent to its main contact address systematically bounce back with an error message, while messages sent to the email address used to file the complaints have gone unanswered.

Fake Gmail accounts and false complaints

In neighbouring Uzbekistan, several journalists and independent outlets were also targeted during the same period. The social media accounts of Eltuzar Media, an exiled outlet launched in Prague, the Czech capital, in March 2026, were repeatedly attacked. “Three successive Telegram channels were removed following false reports that abusively accused the media outlet of doxxing [the public disclosure of personal data], an Instagram account was suspended following fraudulent copyright complaints filed in less than a minute; and our paid Meta verification mark was withdrawn even though we had passed all identity checks,” the editorial team told RSF. On 5 May, an Eltuzar Media Telegram discussion group was also suspended over alleged “illegal pornographic content” before being reinstated after the outlet contested the decision. It was the fourth suspension targeting Eltuzar Media’s Telegram accounts in 96 days. Meanwhile, fake accounts impersonating the news outlet remain active.

In February 2026, the YouTube channel of Uzbek journalist Rinat Sagitov was removed due to a series of complaints by a user named “Shokir Rafikov” associated with the email address [email protected] and presented as the administrator of the Telegram channel Look_изнутри. However, RSF has found no evidence confirming the authenticity of this identity or that the person actually exists.

In other cases, the names of real journalists and media outlets were used to make the complaints seem credible. The Facebook page of Ulugbek Khaydarov, an Uzbek journalist based in Canada, was blocked following a complaint filed in the name of Uzbekistan’s national news agency, UzA. However, the complaint did not use an email from the news agency but the address [email protected], which explicitly uses the name of journalist Aleksey Volosevich, founder of the media outlet AsiaTerra, although he has no connection either to this address or to the complaint itself. According to him, a fake email address was created in his name to file abusive complaints, which he officially reported to Facebook without receiving a response.

AsiaTerra was also targeted by takedowns. Its Facebook page was removed in early April after a series of abusive complaints, then restored before being removed again on 9 May after a new wave of coordinated complaints. The complaints targeted posts critical of Saida Mirziyoyeva, the daughter of the Uzbek President and head of the presidential administration, as well as articles on human rights violations in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan. Similar complaints, filed by accounts impersonating Aleksey Volosevich, the activist and independent journalist Sharifa Murod, and the media outlet Eltuz, also targeted the satirical Facebook page Rassom Tuz, which was briefly suspended.

“This is a real nightmare for independent journalists and media outlets in Central Asia. These attacks are all the more serious because they were facilitated by the failures of these online platforms. The weaponisation of these user reporting systems is especially worrying in Kazakhstan, where the authorities have threatened to completely block platforms that do not bend to their will. Because there is no credible verification of the identity of the people filing the complaints, important journalistic content has disappeared from these platforms and accounts that are essential to ensuring citizens’ right to reliable information have been blocked. The misuse of content moderation mechanisms has been documented for years — it is urgent that these online platforms strengthen the human oversight of these complaints, especially when it comes to news content in politically sensitive situations.

RSF contacted Meta and YouTube to understand how manifestly false complaints, filed from disposable email addresses and using the names of companies with no connection to the targeted content, could have led to the mass removal of journalistic posts. At the time of publication, YouTube had not responded to RSF’s request to speak to a company representative who could comment on the complaints. Meta indicated that it intended to reply, but no response was received by the deadline.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan rank 149th and 147th respectively out of 180 countries and territories in the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index.