In Russia, there are increasing complaints that the video platform YouTube is only functioning to a limited extent. Several media outlets reported outages and cited the Sboj.RF service, which records reports of disruptions on websites. According to the report, complaints were reported primarily in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also from other parts of the country.
Russia had already blocked large social networks such as the short message service X and Facebook, and they can now only be used via protected connections (VPN). The problems with the video platform come as no surprise. The deputy spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Andrej Nastassin, had explained that the platform had blocked Russian channels to Moscow’s annoyance and had also ignored the request of Russian authorities to remove more than 60,000 posts that they considered forbidden and extremist.
At the end of last week, MP Alexander Chinstein wrote on his Telegram channel that the speed of downloading YouTube content could drop by up to 70 percent. The head of the Duma Committee on Information Policy spoke of an allegedly necessary measure.
The throttling is not directed against users in Russia, but against the YouTube management, “which still believes it can violate and ignore our legislation with impunity.”
