Russia was impacted by a massive YouTube outage recently. The news was confirmed by the country’s leading internet service monitoring company which reported thousands of glitches.
Users complained about restricted access as the majority were forced to resort to VPNs to use the app. The news comes as the country steps up criticism of the video-sharing platform. However, some users were still able to attain access through mobile devices.
Meanwhile, reporters from top media outlets such as Reuters were also unable to get access, and no response was given by Google on the matter. The country’s top communications regulator failed to respond to any comments on the outage as well.
In a country like Russia, many rely on YouTube to get news and exercise their freedom of expression. This is related to the fact that the country’s own Kremlin opposition parties are allowed to post their views. However, other popular apps are banned from doing so in Russia.
In the past few weeks, the app’s download speeds also took a major hit. This led to lawmakers blaming the app’s parent firm Alphabet but it failed to take the blame and said it had nothing to do with it.
Last month, the country’s parliamentarian lead for information warned about speeds dropping by nearly 70%. According to him, it was a necessary measure against YouTube, which it called a foreign resource. He further accused the company of acting against the country’s laws and violating policies.
Later on, he blamed the slow speeds on the tech giant’s failure to expand operations in the country. This includes a lack of investments in Russian infrastructure and a rejection of adopting national cache servers.
Meanwhile, YouTube says it was aware of everything going on and how many users couldn’t access the app in the country. They reiterated that they were not involved and no technical restrictions were put out from their end.
Image: DIWAigen
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Users complained about restricted access as the majority were forced to resort to VPNs to use the app. The news comes as the country steps up criticism of the video-sharing platform. However, some users were still able to attain access through mobile devices.
Meanwhile, reporters from top media outlets such as Reuters were also unable to get access, and no response was given by Google on the matter. The country’s top communications regulator failed to respond to any comments on the outage as well.
In a country like Russia, many rely on YouTube to get news and exercise their freedom of expression. This is related to the fact that the country’s own Kremlin opposition parties are allowed to post their views. However, other popular apps are banned from doing so in Russia.
In the past few weeks, the app’s download speeds also took a major hit. This led to lawmakers blaming the app’s parent firm Alphabet but it failed to take the blame and said it had nothing to do with it.
Last month, the country’s parliamentarian lead for information warned about speeds dropping by nearly 70%. According to him, it was a necessary measure against YouTube, which it called a foreign resource. He further accused the company of acting against the country’s laws and violating policies.
Later on, he blamed the slow speeds on the tech giant’s failure to expand operations in the country. This includes a lack of investments in Russian infrastructure and a rejection of adopting national cache servers.
Meanwhile, YouTube says it was aware of everything going on and how many users couldn’t access the app in the country. They reiterated that they were not involved and no technical restrictions were put out from their end.
Read next: OpenAI Gives ChatGPT Users A Free Tier To Make Two Images Per Day From Its DALL-E 3 Model
