The New York Times reports that Russia has begun censoring the Internet inside its borders, acting on a law that was passed back in November.

The intention of the censorship act is to prevent easy access to information that could potentially harm children or that contravenes the law.

Facebook, for example, was asked by Russia's regulators to take down a page that they were concerned promoted suicide. The social network had until Sunday to comply, and did so, having decided that the page was not in the interest of general public health.

Twitter is also said to have complied with some requests to block local access to some posts.