Banner: A Youtube logo seen displayed on a smartphone with a flag of Russia in the background. (Source: Avishek Das / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect)

In the 2010s, YouTube and online video content saw significant growth in Russia, becoming a crucial part of the media landscape and a platform for diverse voices and content creators. As state-controlled television continued to dominate traditional media, YouTube became a vital platform for independent journalists and media outlets. Some actors focused on producing in-depth investigations, covering topics like corruption, human rights issues, and other sensitive subjects for the Kremlin. These videos often garnered significant attention and sparked discussions that were less likely to occur in traditional media. The rise of Russian vloggers and entertainers on YouTube was a major trend in mid 2010s. They produced a wide range of content, from comedy sketches and lifestyle vlogs to tech reviews and beauty tutorials, and had substantial followings, influencing trends and public opinion.

In 2017, late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny launched his YouTube channel Navalny.live to circumvent the ban on his appearance on Russian TV and get his message out. He leveraged YouTube to expose corruption within the Russian government. His channel, which featured investigative reports and commentary, became one of the most influential sources of opposition content. Videos like his expose of former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s corruption attracted millions of views and sparked widespread protests. Navalny published several videos investigating his own poisoning on YouTube, which garnered tens of millions views. Beyond Navalny, other activists and opposition figures used YouTube to mobilize support and raise awareness about social and political issues. The platform’s broad reach and visual format made it an effective tool for rallying public opinion and organizing events.

Citing Google data, a 2022 investigation by Russian outlets Agenstvo and Vazhnie Istorii found that Russia has been the leader in the number of requests to remove content sent to Google since 2011, with Russian authorities having sent more than 60% of all requests in the world. For comparison, the second-place holder Turkey has sent 15,152 requests for removal, while Russia has sent 142,442. The number of requests to remove content from YouTube from Russian government agencies has increased sharply in 2016 and then in 2017, maintaining the high pointer.

According to the same investigation, discussions about having a good domestic YouTube alternative intensified at the turn of 2020-2021 at the Kremlin. In 2021, Vladimir Putin publicly articulated the policy regarding foreign platforms implying that the Kremlin will not shut down anything there’s a domestic replacement available. “When our respected colleagues [reference to foreign platforms] see that there is an alternative, that they do not hold a monopoly position in this market, they will behave differently,” report cited Putin.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian government took swift action against several Western social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were either restricted or blocked entirely. However, YouTube remained accessible in Russia, a notable exception in the broader crackdown on Western digital platforms.

The reason behind this decision was highly likely that YouTube is immensely popular in Russia, with estimates suggesting it has over 90 million users. YouTube has dominated the video hosting market in the country for over a decade. According to Statista, the number of YouTube Russian users was forecasted to continuously increase in the coming years. This widespread usage placed YouTube at the forefront of digital consumption in the country.

Blocking YouTube, especially in the same timeframe as other platforms, would have likely provoked substantial public outcry. Additionally, YouTube has become an essential tool for Russian businesses, influencers, and content creators, whose livelihoods depend on the platform. The Kremlin’s reluctance to ban YouTube, despite two years of escalating threats, highlighted some “practical limits of the Kremlin’s censorship” efforts and underscored the shortcomings of Russia’s domestic technology sector in providing viable video-hosting alternatives.

Russia’s state-sponsored RuTube, which is considered as the main YouTube alternative, has struggled to gain traction and failed to emerge as a usable replacement, even though RuTube and YouTube were developed around the same time. YouTube wasn’t the only Western platform the Kremlin sought to replace with a domestic alternative after February 2022. This move was part of a broader strategy to persuade citizens to forsake Western social media sites, further isolating Russians. In an effort to create a parallel Internet, Russia introduced Rossgram as an alternative to Instagram, NashStore as a replacement for Google Play, and Runiversalis – a Wikipedia mimicry, among other initiatives.

RuTube is owned by Gazprom, the gigantic Russian state gas company that is a tool used by the Russian government to exert control over numerous organizations and media outlets within the country. Despite heavy promotion by the Russian government, RuTube has failed to attract a comparable user base. Russian authorities have even offered aspiring YouTubers and TikTokers monthly payment for transitioning their content to RuTube. In 2021, Russian video hosting platform had just three million users in comparison to YouTube’s almost 79 million users. RuTube’s association with the state and censorship concerns were likely key reasons that has led to a lack of trust among users. Additionally, Russian platform was criticized for poor user experience and quality.

Another Gazprom-owned platform, VK video, did not seem to have made a significant impact on YouTube’s market share either. Soon after the full-scale war, Vkontakte launched a new service automating video migration from YouTube to VK Video – another attempt to push Russian users to domestic platforms.

While Russia chose not to block YouTube outright, the government has continuously applied pressure on the platform through various means. Since 2022, Russia has levied substantial fines against Google, YouTube’s parent company, for not removing content that the Russian authorities deem illegal or inappropriate, particularly content related to the war in Ukraine. These fines have escalated into the millions of dollars. Russia’s internet censor Roskomnadzor banned the advertising of Google products and obliged Russian search engines to add a warning label to YouTube links.

In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, YouTube closely aligned its actions with those of other Western social media platforms and took steps to block Russian state-controlled propaganda channels and remove content about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that violates its policy. Following the introduction of US sanctions against Russia, YouTube further escalated its response by halting the monetization opportunities for creators in Russia. In the beginning of 2024, YouTube blockedmore than forty regional channels of Russian state television and radio broadcasting company.

Google has maintained a degree of resistance despite increasing pressure from the Kremlin. However, there have been instances where YouTube has complied with Russia’s requests, blocking or restricting access to specific videos or channels that the Russian government has identified as “illegal.” In May 2024, YouTube blocked four videos after a request from Roskomnadzor claiming violation of Russia’s law on information. According to Russian investigative outlet Agenstvo, the videos included information on how to avoid conscription and evade being drafted to the war in Ukraine. The author of one of the four videos was OVD-info, an independent human rights defense and media group, whose spokesperson stated that this marks the first instance where YouTube has blocked videos at Russia’s request, rather than due to a breach of the platform’s terms of service. It should be highlighted that in 2021, following pressure from Moscow, Google and Apple removed opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting app, which was helping Russians in mobilizing their votes against Putin’s regime.

On July 12, 2024, Meduza reported that Russian authorities went a step forward and started throttling the connection to the service. A week later some users started reporting issues like the inability to run videos on 360p quality or overall freezing on the platform. However, some users did not experience any issues at the time.

The initial explanation on July 12 was ‘technical problems with equipment owned by Google’ as explained by Rostelecom, the state-controlled operator. In a statement, the provider claimed issues with Google Global Cache, a system that allows content to download faster. On the YouTube community guide, the user wrote an explanation that such a slowdown might be a reason for the YouTube Content Delivery Network servers’ depreciation after Google stopped maintaining them as part of sanctions after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Similar notes were vocalized in forums while being met with criticism from other users who blamed the government and did not “buy” the ‘servers degradation’ option.

However, both the user in the abovementioned blog and Roskomsvoboda, a Russian NGO that supports users’ digital rights, suggested that ‘equipment cannot degrade immediately, only gradually,’ thus most likely ‘throttling is taking place’ to ‘make it harder to use service,’ meaning that it was a government’s work.

On July 25, Aleksander Khinstein, a member of the Russian parliament, claimed that only desktop versions of YouTube would be affected by throttling of ‘up to 40% by the end of the week, and up to 70% by the end of the next week.’ In his explanation, he also suggested that it is both a ‘forced step’ against the ‘anti-Russian policy’ of the platform and a ‘platform’s disregard of its own structure.’ The MP claimed that such measures won’t affect mobile users.

Following Khinstein’s timeline, irregular interruptions continued until the beginning of August, when the widespread issues suddenly started to affect many users. According to DownDetector, a tool that collects complaints from users on connectivity issues, the start of August first demonstrated a spike of issues for Russian users, predominantly from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. On August 1, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-owned news outlet RT, messaged on her Telegram channel ‘YouTube caput,’ meaning that service is broken. In an official statement to Kommersant, YouTube stated that they know about issues in the country but sad that it was not “the result of any technical problems or actions” on their part.

According to Tass, most desktop browsers stopped loading high-quality content on YouTube on August 3. Similar issues were happening with other Google services. On August 3, Russian media SOTA published a screengrab video demonstrating issues with downloading various mobile apps for Android devices from Google Play Market.

On August 8, the situation escalated with a magnitude of users reporting issues with platform accessibility and some sources reporting that the service stopped working entirely after weeks of throttling.

August marked the start of other service blocks as well. The next day, on August 9, after heavy issues with YouTube, Russian authorities blocked Signal, a messaging app that allows the exchange of encrypted messages. Signal confirmed the issues in the country.

Following the service interruptions, Russian users started terminating contracts with local ISPs due to YouTube issues. According to a letter to the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications from Rosteleset, a Russian association of 200+ local telecom operators, the local ISP faced an ‘uneven slowdown of YouTube, Google search and other services.’ This situation led to a ‘multiple times increase’ in customers’ complaints. The main complaint is connected to the stable connection to YouTube on cell network operators but the inability to use YouTube service on the home network. This leads to the situation that ‘users believe that the home provider is to blame’ according to Oleg Grishchenko, president of Rostelset.

Russian Association of Small Regional Telecom Operators (AMOR) sent similar letter, where they highlighted that slowdown happens ‘abruptly and chaotically for different operators in all regions of the country,’ pointing to the uneven implementation of throttling.

On August 12, Google stated that it was deactivating AdSense accounts in Russia. AdSense is an advertising service that “provides a way for publishers to earn money from their online content” for advertisements that Google delivers. Google stated that it won’t be able to make payments to Russia-based AdSense accounts due to “ongoing developments in Russia.”

At the time of writing, YouTube was still experiencing heavy issues with no sign of improvement.