Russia has the third-highest number of child suicides in the world. For the past decade, around 1,500 teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 take their own lives each year, which is three times the world average—and that’s not even when you take the number of suicides registered as accidental deaths into account. In the past, UNICEF reports have pointed toward disadvantaged family situations as the root cause of these figures, but many parents in Russia are pointing the finger at a much larger and harder-to-control source: the internet.
Over the past year, journalists, politicians, and families have been claiming that Russia’s internet culture is promoting youth suicide. Specifically, they lay the blame on so-called “Groups of Death”—closed, cult-like communities that sprout on VKontakte (VK), the Russian version of Facebook. One of the most infamous cliques was called f57, a VK group for members to share videos and memes with a touch of the psychedelic. [...]
Lyubov may say that villainizing the internet isn’t the answer, but many politicians are still desperately calling for more restrictions on social media, and they are positively mute when it comes to self-help groups. For example, earlier this year “Children 404,” which is Russia’s online—and only—support forum for LGBT adolescents, was found guilty of violating the “gay propaganda” law and threatened with closure. This law, which forbids spreading “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors,” was passed in 2013 and written by politician Yelena Mizulina.
