On Monday, Russian media reported a significant decline in traffic to the video service YouTube in Russia. According to data from Google, traffic to the video hosting platform has dropped to approximately 20% of its levels prior to the slowdown that began in July.
The head of the Internet Protection Society, Mikhail Klimarev, was the first to draw attention to this, stating that there is a "de facto blockage of YouTube in Russia."
“Currently, it's about 20% of the normal state. This is not just throttling (slowing down - ed. Spot), but a genuine blockage,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
The Google press service told RBC that the fivefold drop in traffic from average levels to the slowdown of YouTube in Russia is not due to technical issues or actions on the part of the company.
The publication "Agency" reports a sharp increase in demand for VPN services following the "effective blockage of YouTube." The number of requests for downloading VPN services in the Russian segment of the internet has reportedly surged after the latest wave of video service slowdown.
In mid-July, the state internet provider "Rostelecom" announced a slowdown in the operation of the YouTube video hosting service in Russia. The reason cited was "technical problems" with the local servers of the American company Alphabet.
At the end of July, former State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein stated that the upload speed of YouTube on desktop computers in Russia would drop by 70% the following week. This restrictive measure would only affect desktop versions and would not yet impact mobile devices.
At that time, Spot in the Ministry of Digital Development denied reports of disruptions in the operation of the YouTube video hosting service in Uzbekistan. The agency noted that the slowdown in service speed in Russia would not affect the republic.
On December 19, Roskomnadzor acknowledged that the basis for taking measures against YouTube was violations of Russian legislation and "disrespect for our country."
Earlier, Spot reported that Telegram became profitable for the first time in three years, with revenue exceeding $1 billion.