Khinshtein said the measure was a response to YouTube’s taking down “channels of our public figures (bloggers, journalists, artists), whose position differs from the Western point of view.”
In 2022, YouTube blocked Kremlin-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik in Europe after the European Union cracked down on Russian disinformation, and terminated the channel of Russia’s lower house of parliament. It has also taken down thousands of pro-Russian channels and videos for violating its content guidelines.
YouTube is owned by American multinational Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet. It is the world’s most popular video-sharing platform and the second-most visited website globally.
Making YouTube run slower is “directed not against Russian users, but against the administration of a foreign resource, which still believes that it can violate and ignore our legislation,” Khinshtein said.
