"First warning shot"

Russia wants to slow down YouTube, threatens to block it

If YouTube continues to refuse to give in, the platform will be unwelcome in Russia, it said.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/ Sharaf Maksumov)

Russia wants to slow down YouTube. "By the end of the week, the speed of downloading YouTube on stationary computers may drop by 40 percent, and by the end of next week by 70 percent," wrote Alexander Hinstejn, a member of the Russian State Duma, on his Telegram channel. 

The head of the information policy committee in the Russian parliament spoke of an allegedly enforced measure. The throttling of YouTube is not directed against users in Russia, but against the holding company's management, "which still believes it can violate and ignore our legislation with impunity."

The video portal is characterized by an anti-Russian policy, Hinstejn claimed. As an argument, he cited the deletion of accounts of Russian bloggers and media on YouTube that reproduce the Kremlin's war propaganda.

"First warning shot"
The slowing down of YouTube on PCs was only a first warning shot, threatened the politician from the Kremlin party United Russia. Should YouTube still not give in, the platform would be undesirable in Russia. Alternatives such as Rutube and VK Video already exist.

In fact, Russia had already made preparations for a possible isolation of the internet in the country from international resources before the start of its war of aggression against Ukraine. Since the start of the war, the Russian supervisory authority has blocked thousands of websites in order to silence critical voices.