MOSCOW, August 15. /TASS/. In the past 5 years, Russia’s consumer safety watchdog Rospotrebnadzor has detected more than 23,000 websites promoting suicide or containing information about ways to commit them, the watchdog’s press service said on Tuesday.
"Since November 1, 2012, Rospotrebnadzor examined more than 25,000 links to Internet sites," Rospotrebnadzor said. "More than 23,700 of them were found to contain information about ways to commit suicide and/or calls to commit suicide."
"As part of inter-departmental cooperation, Rospotrebnadzor actively cooperates with law-enforcement bodies in order to promptly exchange information on communities and groups promoting suicidal behavior among children and teenagers online," the statement said.
According to earlier reports, Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor has blocked access to more than 275,000 web pages since the law on restricting access to websites with banned information came into force nearly five years ago.
The majority of them - more than 97,000 websites - were blocked on the basis of judicial acts that ruled that the information they contained was banned in Russia. In addition, more than 70,000 websites were banned for promoting drugs. More than 43,000 web pages were banned for offering illegal gambling, over 38,000 - for child pornography and over 25,000 - for promoting suicide.