Yandex Blocked Images of Putin for Some Queries and Nazi Symbols for the Query “Z”

Last week, there was a large-scale leak of the source code of Yandex services (the company itself confirmed it) and it turned out that the search engine blocked images of Putin for certain queries and much more.

Let me remind you that we also wrote that Russian hackers intended to shut down Ukrainian electrical substances using Industroyer2 malware, and also that Due of the sanctions, Russian hackers are looking for new ways to launder money.

Also the media wrote that the Russian DDOSIA Project Pays Volunteers to Participate in DDOS Attacks on Western Companies.

From the leak, in particular, it turned out that Yandex censors the search results for pictures and videos so that images of Putin and Z symbols do not appear in contexts that are unflattering for the authorities.

When you search for pictures in Yandex, in some cases your search query is automatically corrected: the company removes some of the images from the search results.

A special rule of the Behemoth internal service called ImgPatch (literally – fixing images) is responsible for this. A description of this rule can be seen in its code:

Allows you to organize a quick ban of pictures and videos by editing the original requests, from small changes to complete reformulation.

Most often, corrections are used to remove pornographic photos and videos (especially for children) from the Yandex search results. In second place in terms of the number of established rules is the removal of images of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter user @bantg noticed this earlier than others.

Yandex tried to make it impossible to stumble upon the image of the current Russian president when searching for individual words:

1. пиздабол (lying faggot)
2. плешивый (bald)
3. хуйло / хуйла / хуйлы / хуило / хуила (fucked up)

And also phrases:

1. grandpa in his bunker
2. condom of all Rus’
3. dick in a spacesuit
4. fuck in the hole

And whole sentences:

1. what pedophiles look like
2. when he dies
3. strange creature waving

These rules should apply regardless of the country in which the user is located.

Yandex also protects the letter Z from unpleasant associations, which has become a symbol of the Russian war against Ukraine (and is banned in some European states).

Yandex users should not see the symbolism of Nazi Germany for queries with the words symbol z or z special operation logo. To do this, Yandex automatically adds a lot of different minus words to them:

symbol z * patch -luftwaffe -sign -luftwaffe -emblems -german -german -president -german -slavic -army -reich -wehrmacht -symboly -nazis -germany -ss -hitler -nazi -us -us -germany -ss -postimages -kalmykia -cross -membership -hitlerjugend -message -ww2 -symbol -background

z special operation logo * patch -az -spartan -japan -vsu -odessa -specuha -blackwood -special forces -farm -usa -sso -warface -csgo

Checking whether the rule is still functioning is more difficult. In the case of Putin, the program should block the image of the President of the Russian Federation if the user is looking for a specific word, phrase or sentence.