Screenshot taken on January 19, 2018 shows the home page of the Russian social network VKontakte. (Xinhua/Liao Bingqing)
MOSCOW, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Russia's communications watchdog Roskomnadzor banned three groups agitating for illegal and suicidal acts on the Russian social network VKontakte (VK) on Friday amid increasing attacks at schools in the country.
"Roskomnadzor has received requests from Rospotrebnadzor (consumer safety watchdog) to ban information capable of encouraging schoolchildren to commit unlawful and asocial acts, the result of which may be acts of a suicidal nature," Roskomnadzor said in a statement.
There were requirements to ban three groups on VK, as they contained information about possible ways and means of committing suicide, according to the ruling of Rospotrebnadzor.
In response, the pages of these groups on VK were included in the unified register of prohibited information, the statement said.
Established in 2012, the web-monitoring service is authorized to demand the deletion of illegal information without a court order.
VK's administration was asked to remove the illegal information, which was fulfilled immediately, the statement added.
Roskomnadzor's decision was seen as a response to the recently rampant school attacks committed by teenagers in different parts of Russia.
On Friday, a teenager armed with an ax injured five fellow students and a teacher at a secondary school in Buryatia, a republic in Russia's eastern Siberia region.
On Monday, 14 schoolchildren and a teacher were wounded in a knife fight of two teenagers in a secondary school in Russia's Ural mountains city of Perm.
Suspects of both attacks attempted suicide, Russia's Tass news agency reported.
Russian authorities are investigating links between the banned groups and the two school attacks, as preliminary information showed that the attackers were members of such groups.
In the past five years, Rospotrebnadzor detected more than 23,000 websites promoting suicide and providing ways to commit suicide in Russia, the watchdog's press service has said.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday reiterated the necessity of protecting minors from "evil" information on the Internet without violating the principle of freedom of speech.
