Anger and confusion as YouTube reportedly stops working for many users in Russia

After weeks of slowing speeds and growing criticism of the company by the Kremlin, video sharing platform YouTube was widely reported to have stopped working completely for many Russian users on Thursday, both on mobile devices and computers.

Russian social media monitoring service SBOY.RF reported receiving thousands of complaints about YouTube not loading. This came after data indicated that the platform had significantly slowed down on Thursday morning, despite none of Russia’s neighbours experiencing service interruptions.

Many Russians took to social media to vent their frustrations at what appeared to be the end of the road for YouTube users in the country, the sole remaining Western social network that had not been censored as part of the Kremlin’s crackdown on independent media.

“It didn’t stop working, it just slowed down to nothing,” quipped Oleg Mikhajlov on X on Thursday. While Anna 137 wrote “I am happy for those who have everything working. I live in the Sverdlovsk region, YouTube on my smart TV doesn’t work. On my phone, only via a VPN.”

If the authorities really had decided to end access to the hugely popular service in Russia, it would be a very costly decision, as YouTube currently accounts for about a third of all Russian internet traffic, Mikhail Klimaryov, the head of Internet Without Borders, a conference series and hackathon focused on combating Russian digital censorship and propaganda, told Current Time TV.

“Blocking YouTube would cost the Russian economy about $23 million a day,” Klimaryov pointed out, which he said was the equivalent to the cost of three to four oil storage facilities being struck by drones each day.

State Duma Deputy Alexander Khinshtein announced that the Russian authorities would begin slowing YouTube speeds down by as much as 70% last month, apparently in retaliation for YouTube removing pro-Kremlin channels, angering Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor which called the removal of pro-Kremlin content “unacceptable”.

Investigative journalist Andrey Zakharov said on Wednesday that “the old men” in charge didn’t really care about making people’s lives harder by blocking YouTube — “they don’t have smartphones anyway, and they need to fight the satanic Anglo-Saxons somehow”.