(Update 8/8 3:50 pm ET): We’ve included an official statement about the situation from a YouTube spokesperson.
What you need to know
- Reports pile up about Russia’s apparent throttle of home network speeds for users attempting to access YouTube.
- It seems that speeds drop to around 128Kbps when accessing YouTube, which is not suitable for streaming video.
- Russia and Google have butt heads before, especially when the country blocked Google News for reportedly containing “unreliable” information.
Russian authorities have reportedly crippled YouTube download speeds in the country, forcing a near-complete outage.
Reuters first reported the outage, claiming that the country has “stepped up criticism of the platform.” It seems that users have been encountering issues with accessing YouTube for the past few weeks. Russia initially blamed Google for the slow speeds, which the company promptly disputed.
Since the outage, users in the country have been able to access YouTube through a VPN, but not natively through their internet service provider (ISP). The publication states that its staff in the area can’t access YouTube; however, the service is still accessible on “some” handheld devices.
Another report by Meduza states Russia’s authorities had slowed YouTube’s speeds to 128Kbps (via PCMag). The publication adds that the sheer throttling of network speeds was suitable for listening purposes, but attempting to stream videos was futile. Additional information stems from a Telegram channel that reportedly confirmed that “state authorities” are responsible for YouTube’s crawl and not Google.
Concern has risen about whether or not the full fleet of Google’s services will meet a similar fate in the future. Even though this isn’t a textbook outage, most users in Russia cannot enjoy YouTube, given the slow home internet speed.
Android Central has reached out to Google for comment about YouTube’s outage in Russia but did not hear back in time for publication. We will update this article when we hear back.
A YouTube spokesperson provided the following statement to Android Central regarding the issues with YouTube in Russia.
“We are aware of reports of some people not being able to access YouTube in Russia. That is not as a result of any technical issues on our side or action taken by us.”
YouTube spokesperson
Russia and Google have butted heads before, as the country’s officials blocked Google News for “unreliable” information reasons. Users in the area lost access to the news aggregate website due to “materials” about Russia’s military conflict with Ukraine. Despite Google’s attempts to keep information freely available to users, the company confirmed that its unavailability wasn’t due to technical problems.
Other issues include Russia’s ban on Facebook and Twitter (now X) alongside reports of officials “forcing” Netflix to show specific programming. Reports stated Netflix was required to register to the country’s “audio-visual services,” which prompted the necessity of offering 20 state-owned channels. Netflix was also barred from displaying content that included “extremism.”
