Forbes StaffRecently, Russian internet monitoring services reported thousands of glitches on YouTube amid growing Russian authorities’ backlash against the platform.
On Thursday, it was reported that Russia had to face a major YouTube glitch, which affected thousands. The Russian internet monitoring services reported thousands of glitches on YouTube, which only escalated Russian authorities’ criticism of the platform.
What did the Russian Internet monitoring services report?
Sboi.rf, the Russian internet monitoring service, reported thousands of glitches on YouTube in Russia. Users said they could only access YouTube via virtual private networks (VPNs). Reuters reporters in Russia could not access YouTube, and the website remained unavailable on some mobile devices.
A major platform for content in Russia.
YouTube has remained a major platform for content in Russia, but the recent outage only welcomed more criticism from Russian authorities. YouTube, which is owned by US firm Alphabet, the parent company of Google, serves as one of the last major Western platforms on the Russian internet. It is known for publishing content made by Kremlin opponents, which has largely been removed from other popular social media sites in Russia.
YouTube’s download speed was also affected.
It was reported that in recent weeks, the site’s download speeds have also notably slowed, which Russian politicians have blamed YouTube owners for, but the company has disagreed.
Last month, Alexander Khinshtein, the head of a parliamentary committee on information policy, also warned that YouTube speeds would drop by as much as 70%. He said that “the degradation was 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.” Last week, YouTube’s spokesperson confirmed that there were reports of a YouTube outage in Russia, but it wasn’t because of any technical issues on their part.
