Fishki.net
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
Fishki.net is a Russian-language entertainment portal whose entire content is brought in by its readers. The platform describes itself as "pranks, humour, jokes, funny photos and videos to lift your mood on the Fishki.net entertainment portal", and its help section adds: an "information and entertainment community whose content is entirely created by users; the site administration only moderates posts, keeps order and enforces the rules".
The design is closer to the old collective blogs than to a social network. What sets it apart from similar platforms is that publishing rights are tightly tied to karma, and that every repost must credit its original source.
History and scale, in the platform's own words: the site was created in May 2004 and has changed owners and format more than once; according to Similarweb it draws 45M visits a month, on some days two million unique visitors come in, up to a thousand posts pass moderation daily, and topical communities appeared in 2017.
Who's here
All the figures above belong to the platform; the only reference to an external source is the mention of Similarweb inside its own text. The platform gives an older figure on its advertising page: "more than 20M people read us each month"; that page is dated 17 October 2018, so 45M and 20M are different years, not a contradiction.
Geography: the interface language is Russian, the applicable law is Russian. The "About the project" section claims that its readers include "not only every corner of our country, but most countries of the world". The site runs separate rankings of communities, authors and verified authors.
Getting started
Registration is required for everything except reading: the agreement says that using the services requires registration, which creates a unique account.
The platform itself lists what registration gives you: adding news, writing comments, adding posts to favourites, reading 18+ publications, and creating memes, demotivators and greeting cards.
There are restrictions on profile presentation: nicknames and avatars are discouraged if they contain obscenities, Nazi symbols, incitement to hatred, images directly or indirectly related to sexual acts or violence, attempts to impersonate the administration or a moderator, or promotion of alcohol and drugs. Multiple accounts are prohibited: running several active accounts belonging to one user leads to the main one being disabled and possible blocking of any of that person's other accounts; the exception is an additional account for contacting support when the main one is blocked.
Karma
Karma determines what you are allowed to do, and the rules are stated in numbers: at karma of −20 commenting is switched off automatically; you can attach a picture to a comment at karma above 10; at karma above 500 posts go into "Новое" ("New") without pre-moderation; for a video-only post karma must be at least 1000. Accrual: a like on a post gives 2 karma units, a like on a comment 0.5, a like on a post in "Солянка" ("Hotchpotch") 1; a dislike reduces karma.
What you can publish
There are five sections, and you have to choose deliberately. The rules list them: "Политика (Антифишки)" ("Politics (Antifishki)") — posts of a political nature; "Эротика" ("Erotica") — erotica with the corresponding tag; "Солянка" ("Hotchpotch") — one or several pictures with conversation around them; "Адок" ("Hell") — posts marked "gore, 18+"; "Основная лента" ("Main feed") — everything else. Publishing in the wrong section is a separate violation: the post is hidden and the author is banned.
There is only one technical limit: a picture in a post can be up to 10 MB, in gif, jpg, png or webp. There is no cap on how much you post: "there is no limit on the number of permitted publications".
One presentation requirement makes reading the rules before you publish worthwhile: the headline must not be clickbait; you must credit the source of the material — not the site the text was taken from and not the author, but specifically the source post; if the material is your own, mark it "authored post", and it will additionally appear in the "ЯАвтор" ("I'm the Author") feed.
A publication cannot be edited: an item that has been published and passed moderation cannot be edited or deleted, and posts with a rating of 30 or more become impossible to delete.
Rights to uploaded content
The agreement is structured unusually: the platform does not take a licence for itself, but grants one to all other users. Verbatim: "By posting user content through the use of our services, you grant every user of the Service a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to access your Content and use it within the limits allowed by the Service's functionality, including displaying it via the Service's player on third-party sites through embed (iframe) technology, and you also permit the creation of temporary technical copies of the content and video previews of such content".
The rightsholder of what is posted is named as "the Administration or the persons who provided and (or) posted it" — an "or" formulation that does not separate the two cases. Commercial use of the site's materials by others requires a written agreement with the Administration or the relevant rightsholder.
Liability rests entirely with the author: the user is fully responsible for the information they upload, warrants that they hold the exclusive rights to it, and undertakes to settle any third-party claims independently and at their own expense; the administration may request documents confirming those rights.
How to grow
The platform describes its feed mechanics inconsistently. The FAQ says: "News on the home page is assembled by a special algorithm… Publications that have passed moderation and collected more than 5 likes get into 'Горячее' ('Hot')" — and several items further down states something different: "A post will get into 'Горячее' if it collects 30 likes". The rules name a third figure: "For content to move from the 'Новое' section into the main feed… a post must collect at least +10 likes". Three platform sources, three different thresholds. The negative threshold is stated unambiguously: at −15 likes a post is hidden from "Новое" but remains accessible from the profile.
Vote manipulation is punished directly: the administration may block IP addresses and the users themselves if they are caught deliberately raising or lowering the rating of a post or comment from several accounts.
Self-promotion is banned in two forms. The first is advertising posts: "Posting advertising material without prior agreement results in immediate suspension of the user's account"; the agreement duplicates this with a ban on posting content containing advertising information. The second is promoting your own channel: "Promoting your own YouTube channel by publishing posts from that channel. A warning with removal of the post from the feed. On a repeat publication — account blocking".
There is one legitimate path for a brand: buying placement. The rate card is published: a top banner across all pages — CPM 80 RUB; a 300×250 banner — CPM 60 RUB up to 10M impressions, 50 RUB at 10–20M and 40 RUB above 20M; the "Рекомендовано-2" ("Recommended-2") block — 4,500 RUB per day Mon–Thu, 9,000 RUB for Friday plus the weekend, 22,400 RUB for a week and 78,820 RUB for four weeks; a "review in Всячина (Miscellany)" — 10,400 RUB and 15,600 RUB respectively. Sales are handled by OOO «Эдлайнер». The rate card is dated 2018.
Path to monetization
Fishki.net has no public author payout programme: no thresholds, no rates, no partner programme for post authors. The only thing the agreement says about money is that the user acknowledges the administration's right to display advertising.
In practice this means: publishing on Fishki.net is a way to get an audience and karma, not income from the platform. Commercial placement on the site does exist, but it is bought through the ad department, not earned by an author.
Tools and automation
Fishki.net has no public API. The site does serve RSS feeds, but robots.txt blocks addresses ending in /rss from being crawled.
Among built-in tools, the platform names the publishing editor, a builder for memes and demotivators, and the "magic button" Fish It — a browser bookmarklet that lets you send something you have found to the site; installation instructions are in the FAQ.
Limits and rules
- Sanctions. Duplicate posts are removed; obscenities are hidden, and abuse of them earns a ban; an incorrectly credited source means the post is hidden, with a ban for systematic violations; insults, or erotica in "Солянка" without the checkbox, mean hiding plus a ban; flooding earns a warning, with a ban on repetition. Blocks usually run from a day to a week, and from a month to permanent for repeat violations. The FAQ adds separately: spam distribution and breaking the law earn a permanent ban.
- No reasons given. The administration may temporarily suspend, block or delete an account without notifying the user and without giving reasons; it reserves the same right regarding refusal to publish and deletion of any content.
- Russian law. The user is obliged to comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation; disputes are governed by it as well. In the "Политика", "Эротика" and "Адок" sections, material falling under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is separately prohibited; publishing it results in immediate suspension of the account.
- Age and terms. Consenting to view 18+ material constitutes confirmation that you are 18. The agreement itself may be changed without special notice, and a new version takes effect from the moment it is posted.
- Robots. robots.txt uses separate lines to forbid crawling by ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai, GPTBot, CCBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot and a number of others.
Who it's for
It suits authors who work with a Russian-language entertainment audience and are willing to play by the community's rules: pick the right section, credit the original source, build up karma. The entry barrier is low, there is no cap on how much you publish, and karma above 500 removes pre-moderation — so regularity pays off here in how fast you get published. It suits brands with a straightforward budget: the rate card is published and the formats are described.
It does not suit you if your goal is to drive traffic to your own site or channel: both advertising posts and promoting your own YouTube are explicitly banned and punished by blocking. It does not suit you if you are counting on income from the platform: there is no public author payout programme. It does not suit projects that need automation: there is no API, and RSS is closed to robots. And think twice if it matters to you that you can take your material down: a post cannot be edited after moderation, and at a rating of 30 or more it cannot be deleted either.
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the platform describes itself this way: «Pranks, humour, jokes, funny photos and videos to lift your mood on the Fishki.net entertainment portal»
Self-description: this is the platform's claim about itself, not an independent assessment
source, checked 2026-07-28
the platform reports: the site was created in May 2004 and has changed owners and format more than once; according to Similarweb it draws 45M visits a month, on some days two million unique visitors come in, and up to a thousand posts pass moderation a day; topical communities appeared in 2017
The platform's own retelling of Similarweb data, we did not see the export; no measurement date is given
source, checked 2026-07-28
the platform is working: on the date of the check the home page responded 200 with a working feed of recent publications; there is no farewell page or placeholder
A separate check for service shutdown
source, checked 2026-07-28
Who's here
on its advertising page the platform reports: «more than 20M people read us each month» · the source is dated 2018-10-17
The page is dated 17 October 2018; alongside the 45M figure from the «About the project» section these are different years, not a contradiction
source, checked 2026-07-28
Account and access
karma determines rights: at −20 commenting is switched off; a picture can be attached to a comment at karma above 10; at karma above 500 posts go into «Новое» without pre-moderation; for a video-only post karma must be at least 1000. Accrual: a like on a post gives 2 karma units, a like on a comment 0.5, a like on a post in «Солянка» 1; a dislike reduces karma
source, checked 2026-07-28
Content
five sections: «Политика (Антифишки)», «Эротика», «Солянка», «Адок» (gore, 18+) and the main feed; publishing in the wrong section is a separate violation: the post is hidden and the author is banned
source, checked 2026-07-28
the source of the material must be credited — not the site and not the author, but specifically the source post; the headline must not be clickbait; your own material is marked as an «authored post» and additionally appears in the «ЯАвтор» feed
source, checked 2026-07-28
an item that has been published and passed moderation cannot be edited or deleted; posts with a rating of 30 or more become impossible to delete
The second fact comes from the user agreement, clause 3.10
source, checked 2026-07-28
Promotion
at −15 likes a post is hidden from «Новое» but remains accessible from the author's profile
source, checked 2026-07-28
Sources diverge: the platform's sources name the threshold for getting into «Горячее» differently: in one place the FAQ says «more than 5 likes», in another «30 likes», while the site rules require «at least +10 likes» to move from «Новое» into the main feed
Three of the platform's pages, three different numbers; which one holds today does not follow from the sources
source, checked 2026-07-28
Advertising
rate card: a top banner across all pages — CPM 80 RUB; a 300×250 banner — CPM 60 RUB up to 10M impressions, 50 RUB at 10–20M, 40 RUB above 20M; the «Рекомендовано-2» block — 4,500 RUB per day Mon–Thu, 9,000 RUB for Friday plus the weekend, 22,400 RUB for a week, 78,820 RUB for four weeks; a «review in Всячина» — 10,400 RUB and 15,600 RUB respectively. Sales are handled by OOO «Эдлайнер» · the source is dated 2018-10-17
source, checked 2026-07-28
Limits and restrictions
a picture in a post — up to 10 MB, formats gif, jpg, png, webp; there is no limit on the number of publications per day
source, checked 2026-07-28
Restrictions
posting advertising material without prior agreement results in immediate suspension of the account; promoting your own YouTube channel with posts from that channel is punished by a warning with removal of the post, and by account blocking on repetition; the agreement separately prohibits posting content of an advertising nature
The self-promotion rule
source, checked 2026-07-28
the administration is entitled to block IP addresses and the users themselves if they are caught deliberately raising or lowering the rating of a post or comment from several accounts; multiple accounts are prohibited
source, checked 2026-07-28
temporary blocks usually run from a day to a week, and from a month to permanent for repeated identical violations; spam distribution and breaking the law earn a permanent ban; the administration is entitled to suspend, block or delete an account without notice and without giving reasons
The last point comes from the user agreement
source, checked 2026-07-28
robots.txt uses separate lines to forbid crawling of the site by ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai, GPTBot, CCBot, ChatGPT-User, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot, Bytespider, Diffbot, cohere-ai, FacebookBot, Applebot-Extended and a number of others
We worked within the general rule for user agents
source, checked 2026-07-28
Legal
by posting content the user grants every user of the service a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to access the content and use it within the limits of the service's functionality, including display through the service's player on third-party sites via embed (iframe) technology, and also permits the creation of temporary technical copies and video previews. The agreement contains no licence in favour of the administration itself
The key fact about rights: the licence is granted to users, not to the platform
source, checked 2026-07-28
the user is fully responsible for the content they upload, warrants that they hold the exclusive rights to it, and undertakes to settle third-party claims independently and at their own expense; the administration may request documents confirming those rights
source, checked 2026-07-28
the user is obliged to comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation, and disputes are governed by it; in the «Политика», «Эротика» and «Адок» sections material falling under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is separately prohibited, and publishing it results in immediate suspension of the account; consenting to view 18+ material constitutes confirmation of being 18
The second point comes from the site rules
source, checked 2026-07-28
the rightsholder of material posted on the site is named as «the Administration or the persons who provided and (or) posted it»; commercial use of the materials by others requires a written agreement with the administration or the rightsholder
The «or» formulation does not separate the two cases
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: ru
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
Catalogue section: all similar See also: catalogue index · region: Russia and CIS · scheduler comparison · find by situation · platform restrictions