MOSCOW, April 21 (RAPSI) – The rate of cyberbullying of underage persons has surged since early April, experts of Bezopasnost 2.0 (Security 2.0) Center at the Commission on Development of Public Diplomacy, Humanitarian Cooperation and Preservation of Traditional Values of Russia’s Civic Chamber inform on Tuesday.

According to the Chair of the Commission Elena Sutormina, main internet sites, where the most such cases have been detected, are VKontakte and YouTube.

Since early April, the social activist says, experts have been registering an increase in the number of cases relating to cyberbullying of minor in social networks. Whereas in March there were registered 238 such high-profile cases, that is, the audience made over 1,000 persons, since early April the result was 362 bullying incidents.

VKontakte network leads in this respect, Surmina notes, especially as concerns anonymous user group Overheard, which accounts for 70% of all cases of bullying.

In terms of geography, the results of the analysis demonstrate, Moscow and the Moscow Region lead, followed by St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region; Krasnoyarsk Region rated third and is followed by the Crimea Republic and Nizhny Novgorod Region, the Commission Chair observes.

The experts of the Security 2.0 Center, according to the Civic Chamber report, have analyzed over 2,500 open communities and publications on VKontakte, YouTube and Instagramm.

The figures show that parents need to pay more attention to interaction with their children, develop trust-based relationship with them, in order to timely learn about problems they encounter online, Sutormina believes; she also recommends to engage children in joint activities outside internet, what is especially important under the self-isolation regime.