Russian authorities will start slowing YouTube traffic by 40 percent this week and plan to reduce speeds by 70 percent next week, Alexander Khinstein, a member of the Russian State Duma, said on Thursday.
Hinshtein said the traffic drop would not affect mobile users, adding that slowing down YouTube’s speeds was “not a coercive measure aimed at Russian users” and that YouTube management “thinks it can break and ignore the rules.” [Russian] “legislation”.
“YouTube’s fate in Russia rests on YouTube itself,” Kinstein said, warning that unless the company starts complying with Russian law “nothing good awaits here.”
Rostelecom, Russia’s largest internet service provider, warned users earlier this month of possible service disruptions affecting download speeds and video quality due to “operational issues” with the Google cache system, which speeds up the loading of content from Google services in Russia.
Sources at the independent Russian media outlet Meduza said the outage was part of a deliberate campaign by the Kremlin to slow down YouTube’s traffic, but President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, assured reporters that the issue was solely due to “problems with equipment that hasn’t been updated for more than two years” and that Russia had “no plans” to block YouTube.
YouTube is one of the few Western platforms not blocked as part of the Kremlin’s crackdown on independent media since the invasion of Ukraine, and many Russian opposition bloggers and independent media rely on the video-sharing service to reach audiences at home.
The platform has angered Russian authorities by removing more than 200 pro-Kremlin YouTube channels since 2020, including propaganda outlets such as Solovyov Live and RT, as well as accounts for staunchly pro-war Russian musicians such as Shaman, Polina Gagarina and Oleg Gazmanov, leading Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor to say the move was “unacceptable” and an “act of censorship.”
But YouTube removed content at the request of Roskomnadzor, including at least three videos explaining how to evade military conscription, independent media outlet Azendstvo reported in May. The platform also warned Russian human rights group OVD-Info in May that its channel could be blocked because it had been blacklisted by Roskomnadzor.