A "Miss Hitler" contest hosted on a Russian social media website was cancelled Monday over complaints the contest promoted "violent action," the news website Vocataiv.com reported.
The "Miss Hitler" contest emerged on a page ran by the pro-Nazi group "Adolf Hitler," comprised of Russians and Ukrainians, on the Russian Facebook-like website called VKontakte.
The contest asked all attractive anti-Semitic women to post pictures of themselves with the hopes of receiving enough likes to win the title of Miss Ostland 2014, Vocativ reported. The contest was launched since at least mid-October, with the page receiving 7,000 followers.
On Monday, a VKontakte representative told the news site they removed the "Adolf Hitler" page due to its "calls for violent action."
Though the nature of the alleged violent actions is unclear, VKontakte's policy prohibits users from publishing or disseminating information that "propagandizes and/or contributes to racial, religious, ethnic hatred or hostility, propagandizes fascism or racial superiority," Vocativ reported.
Miss Ostland invokes the 1941 Nazi occupation in eastern Europe where over one million Jews were killed. The contest organizers, however, said the pageant was really about "feminine beauty," the news site reported.
First, second and third-place winners of the contest- had it not been shut down- would have claimed several prizes among Nazi memorabilia.
One contestant, Irina Nagrebetskaya, spends her spare time posting Adolf Hitler quotes on social media in honor of the infamous leader. Other contestants praised his "master race" philosophy while expressing dreams of reviving the Holocaust, Vocativ reported.
Aleksandr Anderson, the username of the individual who created the "Adolf Hitler" page, got into an online spat with a VKontakte employee on another pro-Hitler page he runs. Anderson repeatedly asked the representative why his "Miss Hitler" page was blocked but did not receive a reply, according to Voactiv.
Anderson runs an estimated 300 anti-Semitic groups, with each having up to 30,000 followers.
