MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - The Russian Prosecutor General's Office succeeded in blocking more than 10,000 Internet sites with calls for terrorism, extremism and riots in 2020, Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov said.
"Illegal content with calls for extremism, terrorism and riots was deleted from 52,000 Internet sites, user access to 10,000 sites was blocked," he said on Wednesday at a board meeting in the Prosecutor General's Office on the results of the work done in 2020.
"The Internet became one of the main sources of dissemination of extremist ideology - half of the corresponding crimes are committed with its use," he said.
The total number of extremist crimes almost doubled in 2020, he said.
"The threat of the commission of terrorist crimes is not declining, which requires prosecutors to improve measures to ensure anti-terrorist security of critical infrastructure facilities and crowded places," Krasnov said.
Krasnov also called on his subordinates "to increase efforts to counter the dissemination in mass media of negative fake information fueling escalation and containing calls for violence."