Russia Throttles YouTube Over ‘Anti-Russian Policy’

YouTube access speeds in Russia are set to decline by 70 percent by the end of this week as the regulator said it would throttle one of the few foreign social media services still available in the country.

Alexander Khinshtein, head of the technology committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said on Telegram that YouTube access would be slowed by 40 percent last week and 70 percent this week due to the firm’s “anti-Russian policy”.

Russia has blocked several social media platforms in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including Facebook, X and Instagram, but has allowed YouTube to continue functioning in part because of the lack of a clear domestic alternative.

The Russian unit of Google was declared bankrupt in October of last year after more than a year of proceedings that stemmed from local officials’ seizure of funds from the company’s bank account in May 2022 in payment of a fine.

‘Anti-Russian policy’

Since then Google has continued to provide free services such as Search, YouTube and Gmail.

Khinshtein said slowing YouTube was a step intended to punish the company for violations of Russian law and laid the blame on YouTube and Google themselves.

“Everything that’s happening is a consequence of the anti-Russian policy of the host, that consistently deletes channels of our public figures (bloggers, journalists, artists) with positions that differ from the western point of view,” he said last Thursday.

On Friday he said Google had not invested in Russian infrastructure and had allowed its Russian subsidiary to go bankrupt, meaning it could not pay for local data centre services.

“This is primarily due to the actions (or rather inaction) of YouTube itself,” he wrote.

Fines

Communications regulator Roskomnadzor said YouTube’s speeds were declining as Google had not upgraded its Google Global Cache servers in the country.

Russia has fined Google several times for failing to take down content the country deems illegal.

In March 2022 Google blocked channels worldwide associated with Russian state-funded media under a policy that bars content that denies, minimises or trivialises well-documented violent events.

Khinshtein said mobile access to YouTube would remain free from throttling for the time being and recommended local platforms Rutube and VK Video as alternatives.