According to ‘Rostelecom’, YouTube's slow speeds in Russia are due to technical issues: Google has left the country and no longer maintains its servers, which are worsening.
However, some Russian media, citing independent sources, reported that the Russian authorities were deliberately 'throttling' YouTube and preparing for its complete blockade. Alexander Khinshtein, the head of the Russian State Duma's Information Policy Committee, confirmed that YouTube download speeds in Russia were intentionally dropped due to the hosting's anti-Russian policy.
This news was discussed on the air of Belarus’s state-run Radio Minsk on July 16, 2024. Here is what was said by both studio guests Kirill Kazakov, the editor-in-chief of Minsk Courier, and Andrey Sych, the presenter of Belarus-1 TV, and radio host Alena Rodovskaya. In particular, Andrey Sych noted Russia has alternative platforms such as RuTube.
“Their VK platform is wonderfully developed now, but RuTube has been glitching and continues to do so,” Alena Rodovskaya said.
“I won't agree. RuTube is running fine, everything is good,” Kirill Kazakov responded.
“I sincerely hope they will fix it…” Andrey Sych added.
“We've been sincerely hoping for two years already,” Rodovskaya objected.
“You know, there are alternative platforms. The fact that they are lagging and freezing up somewhere is self-evident. YouTube wasn't built in a day,” Sych explained.
Indeed, YouTube has been evolving for 19 years now. The video platform was launched in 2005 as an online video-sharing platform and was later bought by Google. The platform currently boasts over two billion monthly visitors.
RuTube is just one year younger than YouTube. The Russian video-hosting service was created by two entrepreneurs from Oryol, Russia, and launched in 2006.
Gazprom Media later acquired Rutube: a controlling stake in 2008 and the rest — in 2020. The investor pledged to make the Russian video hosting service on par with YouTube.
Over the last three years, its audience has grown 15–fold, attracting around 50 million users monthly.