Russia to slow down YouTube

YouTube’s speed on desktop computers in Russia may drop by around 40% by the end of this week and up to 70% next week, Aleksandr Khinshtein, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy has said.

In a post on Telegram on Thursday, Khinshtein pointed out that the measure comes in response to the US video-hosting platform’s anti-Russia policy. YouTube consistently deletes the channels of Russian public figures, including bloggers, journalists, and artists, whose position differs from what is accepted in the West, he said.

“The ‘degradation’ of YouTube is a necessary step, directed not against Russian users, but against the administration of a foreign resource that still believes it can violate and ignore our legislation without punishment,” the lawmaker wrote.

On mobile devices, YouTube will function as usual so far, according to the lawmaker, who said the service’s future in Russia was in the company’s hands. The summer period, when many people are on vacation and use their phones rather than computers, was chosen as the time to implement the slowdown, he noted.

“If the administration of the platform does not change its policy and does not start observing our laws, it can expect nothing good here,” Khinshtein wrote.

YouTube users have been complaining that the popular video-hosting service is becoming less convenient, he said, citing technical issues related to parent company Google’s servers in the country.

Russia’s largest internet provider, Rostelecom, had said earlier that the hardware has not been updated in over two years after the tech giant limited its presence in Russia following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.

Rostelecom has already noted a deterioration in the uploading of videos to YouTube this week, according to Khinshtein.

The Russian lawmaker indicated that alternative video-hosting platforms such as RuTube and VK Video are now developing “very actively.”

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