He crept to the peephole and looked at them, standing there, before moving quietly to the window, only to see more men in the same uniforms waiting outside his building. He didn't answer, even as they shouted thickly through the door. Then his phone began to ring, over and over, with calls from unfamiliar numbers.

Durov knew why they were there. Just days before, he'd received a letter in the mail from the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, or FSB, a reincarnation of the Soviet Union's KGB, demanding that he take down VKontakte pages being used to organize protests opposing the re-election of Vladimir Putin.

But rather than heed orders to block them from the internet, Durov had pushed back: the day after receiving the letter, he beefed up the site so that it could accommodate even more posts per page. That same day, he ?tweeted a picture of the letter, along with text that translates to "the official response to a request for special services blocking groups," and a photo of a dog in a hoodie with its tongue sticking out.