Russia just went from autocratic to despotic rule by shutting off large parts of the internet. Unlike North Korea and China though, Russians heavily use YouTube and don’t have a comparable video hosting site of their own.
The shutdown has been rumored for weeks, but was expected in September or even later. Some speculate that Ukraine’s own invasion of Russia in the Kursk Oblast has put pressure on the Kremlin and Putin, and they as usual have responded badly.
Source: Radio Free Europe
The YouTube video hosting site and app have stopped opening in Russia. This is evidenced by user complaints.
The number of messages on the Sboy.rf service has already exceeded ten thousand in the last few hours. Downdetector records complaints about YouTube failures all over Russia – from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. Most of the messages come from densely populated Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.
Russian YouTube users have been experiencing service outages en masse since early August: videos have started loading slowly or stopped loading altogether. Russians are using VPN services to bypass the blocking.
In mid-July, Rostelecom warned that YouTube could begin to work poorly due to the “wear and tear of Google servers installed in Russia.” Google later denied any involvement in the problems with access to YouTube in Russia.
At the end of July, State Duma deputy from United Russia Alexander Khinshtein predicted a future slowdown of YouTube by 70% due to its “anti-Russian policy.” According to him, this “forced step” will only affect desktop versions for now.
Yesterday, August 7, Meduza, citing a source in the telecommunications market, wrote that Russian authorities had decided to slow down YouTube to 128 kbps.
After the invasion of Ukraine, YouTube blocked many pro-Kremlin channels. Opposition media, on the contrary, continue to work on the video hosting site.
In early July, YouTube administration blocked the channels of a number of Russian singers and artists who actively support the war in Ukraine. Among them are Shaman, Grigory Leps, Polina Gagarina, Oleg Gazmanov and Yulia Chicherina. The reason for the blocking was the sanctions imposed by the US and the EU against them as part of the 14th sanctions package adopted in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
