On the night of July 31st to August 1st, residents of Moscow and Voronezh reported ASTRA that many Russian users were not able to use the video service altogether or their videos were uploaded with delays. ASTRA draws attention to the fact that corresponding messages about failures in the work of YouTube also appeared in regional chat rooms of residents of the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Tatarstan and other regions of the Russian Federation.
An ASTRA reader contacted Beeline [telecommunications brand] regarding problems with loading of YouTube, but the support service replied that “we do not see problems with loading YouTube in our network. There is no information about the situation yet.”
Earlier, MTS [another telecommunications company] began to warn subscribers about possible malfunctions in the work of YouTube. The corresponding message is left by the robot when calling the MTS hotline.
On July 25th, State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein confirmed that the slowdown of YouTube in Russia is not at all due to the wear and tear of Google’s equipment, as previously stated by the Russian authorities, but “a forced step that we must take due to the fact that the platform violates Russian legislation.” The next day, however, the deputy suddenly refuted himself, writing that the slowdown was”primarily due to the actions (or rather inaction) of YouTube itself.“
He also announced a 30% reduction in downloading speeds by early August.
