Wow, a twelve year old russian girl commited suicide because of her association with some website that promoted teens committing suicide.  It's really sad that sick people would go online and prey on little children like this.  I find it shocking and hard to believe anyone would want to do such a thing.  They really need to find a way to crack down on these people and put them away for life.  This is just ridiculous.

I just read an article about suicides in Russia. Apparently, there are online communities devoted to encouraging teenagers to take their own lives. Often times these websites are maintained and propagated just to receive money through advertising. Can you imagine living with the deaths of people just to make a few bucks from ads? We truly live in a twisted reality.

It's a day like any other day in a provincial city in central Russia. A 12-year-old girl is getting ready to go to school. Suddenly her phone rings. The next minute she is out of the door, saying she's meeting a friend and they will go to school together. Later the same day, when her mother turns up at the school, there is no sign of her daughter. No-one has seen her. This is really sad and terrifying.

It is quite disturbing that the number of teen suicides in Russia is so high. It is far less surprising that there is a direct link between the increase in suicides and the Russian social media site VKontakte. I think there is a causal link between teen suicides in the US and the growing popularity of similar sites.

I just read an article about a teenage girl in Russia who was apparently taken in by an online suicide group that conditions teens to kill themselves. It's odd to think that there are people out there that get off on convincing impressionable youth to commit suicide. I think the internet is becoming something that guardians need to at least passively monitor to see what's going on in their children's heads.