A senior Russian lawmaker has announced that the video-hosting platform’s load speed will reduce by 70% starting next week.
According to Aleksandr Khinshtein, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, YouTube’s speed on desktop computers in Russia may drop by around 40% by the end of this week and up to 70% next week.
In a Telegram post on Thursday, Khinshtein stated that this measure is a response to the US video-hosting platform’s anti-Russia policy. He claimed that YouTube consistently deletes the channels of Russian public figures, including bloggers, journalists, and artists, whose positions differ from those accepted in the West.
“The ‘degradation’ of YouTube is 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,” the lawmaker wrote.
The lawmaker indicated that YouTube will function as usual on mobile devices, but its future in Russia is in the company’s hands. He noted that the summer period, when many people are on vacation and use their phones rather than computers, was chosen as the time to implement the slowdown.
“If the administration of the platform does not change its policy and does not start observing our laws, it can expect nothing good here,” Khinshtein wrote.
Khinshtein mentioned that YouTube users have been complaining about the popular video-hosting service becoming less convenient, citing technical issues related to parent company Google’s servers in the country.
Russia’s largest internet provider, Rostelecom, had previously stated that the hardware has not been updated in over two years after the tech giant limited its presence in Russia following the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict.
Khinshtein reported that Rostelecom has already noticed a deterioration in the uploading of videos to YouTube this week.
The Russian lawmaker suggested that alternative video-hosting platforms such as RuTube and VK Video are now developing “very actively.”