Russian internet monitoring services reported a widespread outage affecting the availability of the video hosting site YouTube on Thursday, coinciding with increased criticism of the platform by Russian authorities. The Russian internet monitoring service Sboi.rf noted thousands of reports about YouTube glitches in Russia. Users reported that they could only access YouTube through virtual private networks (VPNs). "YouTube is not working," an anonymous user commented on the site. Reuters reporters in Russia were also unable to access YouTube, although the website was still accessible via certain mobile devices. Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Thursday, and Russia’s state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, also did not reply to a request for comment.
YouTube remains one of the last major platforms for free expression on the Russian internet, continuing to host materials by Kremlin opponents that have been largely removed from other popular social media sites in Russia. The site's download speeds have significantly slowed in recent weeks, a situation Russian lawmakers attribute to YouTube's owner, Alphabet's Google, which disputes this claim. Alexander Khinshtein, head of a parliamentary committee on information policy, warned last month that YouTube speeds could drop by up to 70%. He stated that this degradation was "a necessary step, aimed not at Russian users, but at the administration of a foreign resource that still believes it can violate and ignore our legislation without consequence." Khinshtein later explicitly blamed the slowdown on Google's failure to invest in Russian infrastructure, such as local cache servers, a claim that YouTube refuted.
A YouTube spokesperson stated last week that they were aware of reports that some people were unable to access YouTube in Russia, clarifying that this was not due to any technical actions on their part.
