Roman Orlov, a third-year cadet of the Faculty No. 4 (Cyberpolice) of Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, and Oleksii Rvachov, a senior lecturer at the Department of Information Processing Technology and Cybersecurity of the same faculty together with Viktoriia Chernikova-Berezdetska, host of the “Vidkrytyi Dostup” program “UA Ukrainian Radio. Kharkiv" discussed issues of "death groups", which are spread on social networks and are extremely dangerous, especially for children and adolescents.

"Death groups" are conventionally referred to as websites, web pages, discussion forums on Internet forums, groups and chats on Internet messengers or social computer networks in which Internet users disseminate destructive information. These are messages, graphics and videos about supposedly safe ways to commit suicide. They encourage and incite young people to dangerous behavior, self-harm, and so on. 

Quite often, administrators of such online communities in quest form give members of "death groups" instructions or tasks to watch certain videos, restrict communication with acquaintances and relatives, inflict bodily harm, offer to take part in dangerous challenges, and so on.

According to the results of recent joint monitoring by representatives of Cyberpolice Department, Juvenile Prevention Administration of the Department of Preventive Activities of the National Police of Ukraine and the Faculty № 4, it has been out that currently such "death groups" are most often placed in Telegram messenger.

With the help of users of the Telegram chatbot "StopNarcotic" in early March 2021, about ten e-mail addresses of "death groups" in the Telegram messenger were blocked.

The representatives of the university told the radio listeners about the motives for creating "death groups", described the people who create and administer such online communities, how to act in case of detection of "death groups" on the Internet, how to protect children from dangerous associations and more.

The future cyber police officer Roman Orlov spoke about the participation of the cadets of the faculty № 4 in identifying "death groups", establishing data about members and administrators of these online communities.

You can listen to the audio recording of the "Vidkrytyi Dostup" program with the participation of university representatives at the link https://www.mixcloud.com/oblradio_kharkiv/Kharkivski-kursantsi-dopomogli-natspolitsii-vyavit-blizko-30-grup-smerti-v-sotsmerezhi/