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Media watchdog says it shut down access to all suicide-promoting websites

MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. All public websites promoting suicide have been blocked in Russia, Alexander Zharov, head of national media watchdog, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, said.

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Russia's VKontakte social network user detained over persuading kids to commit suicide

"We have blocked over 10,000 websites and internet communities promoting suicide, we have been doing this since 2012. At present, we can say with confidence that there are no open websites and communities of this kind left," he said in an interview with Russia’s TV broadcaster NTV.

According to Zharov, 17 cases of suicide have been proven to be instigated by the professed online internet "death groups".

"The communities with limited membership are the main problem," the watchdog head said noting that it was difficult to penetrate these groups since their admins carefully checked each new candidate. Zharov also said that Roskomnadzor and the Vkontakte social network had set up a working group in order to detect and block private "death groups" without a court decision.

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