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3 months ago
3
ARTICLE AD BOX
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.
English (US)