YouTube faces widespread outage in Russia

YouTube experienced a mass outage in Russia on Thursday, with users reporting that the platform was inaccessible without using virtual private networks (VPNs). The outage comes amid increasing criticism from Russian authorities, who have been targeting the platform for its role in hosting content from Kremlin opponents, which has been largely removed from other social media sites within Russia. Reuters journalists in Russia confirmed the issue, with access only available through some mobile devices.

Russian internet monitoring services, including Sboi.rf, reported thousands of glitches affecting YouTube. Despite these issues, neither Google, the parent company of YouTube, nor Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor, provided immediate comments on the situation.

In recent weeks, YouTube’s download speeds in Russia have noticeably slowed, a development blamed by Russian lawmakers on Google’s alleged failure to invest in local infrastructure. Alexander Khinshtein, head of a parliamentary committee on information policy, warned that YouTube speeds could drop by as much as 70%, labelling it necessary to pressure the platform into complying with Russian legislation. YouTube, however, rejected these claims, maintaining that the issues were not due to any technical actions on its part.