MOSCOW, Dec 20: According to Roskomnadzor, the Russian media and communications authority, YouTube has blocked over 200 Russian channels, including 80 accounts just this year, reported Sputnik.
“The number of blocked Russian channels continues to rise. After initially targeting Russian media, journalists, and public figures, YouTube has now begun blocking the channels of Russian musicians this year. This includes entire channels that were popular among Russian audiences. So far, more than 200 channels have been blocked, with over 80 accounts affected this year alone,” Roskomnadzor stated on Thursday.
On July 10, Roskomnadzor issued another request to have Russian channels unblocked, but received no reply from YouTube.
“Due to ongoing violations of [Russian] law, Google LLC has been fined over 25 billion rubles ($241.5 million) by the courts over the past three years. The total fines since 2021 exceed 34.5 billion rubles,” Roskomnadzor indicated.
In late July, Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein mentioned that the download speed of YouTube’s desktop version in Russia would decrease by 70%, attributing this throttling to YouTube’s alleged anti-Russian stance.
(UNI)
