Source code from the largest Russian search engine – If Russians search for “moron” on the Internet, Putin should no longer appear

“Idiot”, “What do pedophiles look like”, “Grandpa in his bunker”: If Russian Internet users search for these keywords in the search engine Yandex, pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin should no longer be displayed. This is revealed by a leaked source code that was published by an unknown user last week, as reported by the independent portal “Meduza”. According to the report, Internet giant Yandex has been working closely with the Kremlin for several years and has therefore come under criticism.

Putin should not appear in these curious search queries

The leaked code shows that searches for images are partially processed. This is especially the case with pornographic images. The second most common use, however, is to remove images of Putin from search results when searching for specific terms. Below:

• moron (in an ice hole)
• Bald head
• Grandpa in his bunker
• What do pedophiles look like?
• Strange creature waving his hand
• when does he die

Source code is also said to protect the letter Z

“Meduza” does not know when the source code was edited and if it is still in use. It was also found that images were excluded when searching for the letter Z, which is symbolic of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. These include images associated with the terms “Germany”, “Luftwaffe”, “Nazis”, “USA” and “World War II”. However, images of swastikas are still displayed. According to “Meduza”, this would indicate that the code is no longer working or not working well.

The code would also include other words that are not allowed in Yandex captchas, including “death”, ethnic slurs, as well as “surrender” and “lvov”, which have recently been added. “Lvov” means lion in Russian, but according to the term “Meduza” in this context refers to the Ukrainian city of Lviv.

Yandex is the fifth largest search engine in the world after Google, Yahoo, Baidu and Bing. The Russian-Dutch company has its operational headquarters in Moscow. The Russian government is said to have had a greater say in the company through a change in management structure since 2019.