Illegal information removed from 14,500 web pages in past 6 months - Roskomnadzor
MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) - The administrations of major social networking sites and video hosting services have removed prohibited information from nearly 15,000 pages in the past six months, the telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor said on its website on Friday.
"The monitoring carried out by Roskomnadzor has revealed that over the past half a year the information, distribution of which is prohibited in Russia, has been removed from 14,500 pages," the agency said.
"Roskomnadzor has taken note of the responsible position that the administrators of major social networking sites, video hosting services and entertainment websites [have taken] on complying with the law regarding the removal of illegal information, including in the drugs, suicide propaganda and child pornography categories," the statement said.
A large number of links to suicidal content were observed on VKontakte (VK), Twitter and Instagram, the agency said. That is because the organizers of suicidal communities are active on social media.
"The websites' representatives earlier confirmed their readiness to promptly detect and delete the illegal content. And they are keeping their word. Russian [internet] resources have reacted with a speed of between one and three hours. Foreign resources normally take 24 hours to remove information," the statement said.
Thus, popular websites are complying with the Russian laws aimed at preventing the spread of illegal content in the Russian segment of the internet (Runet), the watchdog said.
The mechanism of the national register against the spread of illegal information on the Runet has been in place since 2012. The register includes web pages on the basis of decisions by competent authorities and judgments which have come into effect.