The president gave a stark review of online safety, insisting that the internet is being used “to promote completely unacceptable content: for the distribution of child pornography, prostitution, for driving minors to suicide.”
Russia’s president has condemned “criminals” using the internet to target children for nefarious purposes, such as encouraging attendance at political rallies, like those in support of jailed opposition figure Alexey Navalny.
In a meeting with civic volunteers on Thursday, Vladimir Putin claimed that some accounts were even encouraging minors to commit suicide, arguing that they would feel the full force of the law. “When the police get to these freaks,” he said, “they might be Rambo on the internet, pushing a boy or a girl to jump from a roof, but they will fill their pants. When the bastard is sitting there in front of you, he’s a bug and we don’t mind just crushing him.”
The president’s comments come on the back of another colorful comparison aimed at those taking advantage of children online. During a meeting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs on Wednesday, Putin told officials that more action was needed to crack down on people using the internet to “try to take advantage of children in cold blood [in order to] achieve their own selfish, ‘ferret’ goals.”
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