The authorities in a restive region of southern Russia have been offering smartphones in return for tip-offs about extremist material online.
Dagestan set up a website for members of the public to leave warnings about “posts that promote terrorism or incite religious or ethnic hatred”, with the most prolific contributor winning an iPhone SE and the runners-up Chinese smartphones, the local Kavkaz-Uzel news site reports.
Anyone interested can send links to the Hot Line site in complete confidentiality. Anything that looks dangerous will be passed to the police after assessment by counter-terrorism specialists, the Dagestan Religious Affairs Committee announced this week.
The announcement promptly made the Hot Line and its rewards national news, although the site was set up in April by the then deputy communications minister of Dagestan, Sergei Singarev.
‘Make us all safer'
He unveiled it at a meeting with school students during the launch of a campaign to “encourage young people to help make all of us safer” in the region – which shares a border with Chechnya in the north Caucasus.
Anyone unimpressed by the generation of smartphones on offer could be enticed by the prospect of winning a hoverboard, the Grani news site adds.
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