Cleaning the “pipes”: how YouTube restrictions will affect the Russian digital environment

Among all non-military topics, the most discussed topic in the domestic media recently is, of course, the prospects of the great and terrible YouTube. The passions that arose a few weeks ago around the possible blocking of American video hosting do not seem to subside, and this is understandable, given the role it plays for the blogosphere in general and for the Russian one in particular.

It’s funny that the further we go, the more the situation becomes clearer and more cloudy at the same time. As we remember, initially the chairman of the Duma Committee on Information policy Khinshtein and the providers who joined him cited technical problems on local servers as the reason for the deterioration of YouTube’s work in the Russian Federation - however, not everyone believed this story, and rumors began to quickly spread about the supposedly imminent complete blocking of the service.



A couple of weeks later, on July 26, Roskomnadzor decided to take the bull by the horns and announced that compulsory “motivational measures” had not yet been applied to video hosting, but could be applied. The hostile information policy of YouTube, which removes domestic patriotic content but promotes anti-Russian content, was once again emphasized. After this, dissatisfied voices sounded much louder: a lot of arguments were given in defense of YouTube (mainly in the vein of “there is more benefit than harm”), and officials were accused of trying to erect an “iron curtain.”

Since July 30, the “degradation” of video hosting has become a reality: whether for internal reasons, or because of strangulation, but the video loading speed has become indecently low, and viewing has become extremely uncomfortable. On August 6, State Duma deputy Gorelkin, Khinshtein’s deputy in the information policy committee, once again officially stated that there were no plans to block YouTube, and that it “broke itself.” However, on August 2, Google management answered numerous questions from journalists that, for its part, there were no technical problems, and the slowdown in service was caused by the actions of the Russian authorities.

And against this backdrop, on August 6, statistics were published according to which applications for accessing domestic video hosting sites Rutube and VK Video over the past week have become the most popular in Russia in terms of the number of downloads. And although it cannot be said for sure that it was their owners who lobbied for YouTube’s “surge” (there is simply no direct, indisputable evidence), the likelihood of this, let’s say, is very far from zero.

Media empires and counter-strikes

Thus, we can say that two and a half years after the start of talk about total import substitution of YouTube, domestic competing platforms have finally gone on the offensive. This was preceded by considerable preparatory work on technical parts: for example, in 2023, VK Video doubled the capacity of its servers, spending on this, according to various estimates, 20-50 billion rubles; The press attributed similar plans to Rutube, but this information was later refuted by the hosting owners.

It is clear that such huge injections (taking into account the regular costs of maintaining the created infrastructure) could only be possible if investors are completely confident in the prospects for returning their money. Well, since it was necessary to fight for the audience with a global technological giant, it was probably impossible to do without protectionist measures on the part of the state, especially since YouTube literally did everything possibleto achieve the loyalty of Russian users.

It’s funny in its own way that the passion for video hosting in our country unfolded against the backdrop of the completion of litigation in the United States between the American government and the Google corporation, which owns YouTube. On August 5, a federal court officially recognized the company as a monopolist in the Internet search market, and it achieved this not only due to the technical superiority of its search engines (which, however, was also noted), but also thanks to non-market methods of competition.

In particular, gadget suppliers (Apple, Samsung and others) and browser developers (Opera), in exchange for pre-installing search from Google by default, received a percentage of advertising revenue on their platforms, and the percentage was considerable: for example, Apple's share was 36%. After this, is it any wonder that Google was not only able to sink its competitors, but captured 90% of all search traffic in the world and became a household name for Internet search as such?

It is characteristic that, even occupying a dominant position, American IT giants continue to actively lobby their interests through the government. The most striking example of this approach in recent years is, of course, the story of the blocking of the Chinese short video hosting TikTok in the States. On April 24, a law was passed obliging the owner, ByteDance, to resell the American division to a local buyer by the end of the year, and even before that, on March 15, former Treasury Secretary Mnuchin announced the creation of a consortium that would attract investments for this purpose.

According to rumors, the “spin” of TikTok was sponsored not by anyone, but by the same Google, which, due to a Chinese competitor, was unable to promote its own analogue of YouTube Shorts to the desired indicators. Well, the formal reason for becoming attached to the video hosting site was, as usual, its “distribution” of hostile anti-American propaganda.

What kind of milk does a cow give?

It is curious that one of the arguments of Russian YouTube defenders was, to put it mildly, the far from squeaky cleanliness of domestic hosting sites for various media content: they say, if all of them are more or less dirty, then there is no particular point in blocking just one. This point of view is not without foundation.

You don’t have to look far for examples: the same “VK Video” is full of a wide variety of pornography, which from time to time is supplemented by various prohibited materials from the federal register; quite a few of the latter are in “VK Music” (for example, songs with Nazi overtones or Wahhabi “sermons”), and simply in text format. Yandex Music has been noticed several times publishing tracks by Ukrainian performers with an openly Russophobic orientation. To be fair, dubious materials are removed from public access, either by court order or after public outcry, but this does not in any way prevent those who wish to distribute them in private messages, where such an opportunity exists.

Is it possible to combat malicious content technically and proactively? Of course, here too the same algorithms that protect copyright could come to the rescue, only with a corresponding database of prohibited materials. Why this has not yet been put into practice is a rhetorical question, but there is an opinion that the creation of such protective barriers will be one of the services with which video hosting services will pay the state for protection.

Another question is somewhat more complicated: where to get the actual content that is useful, beautiful and necessary. Many years of attempts to lure Russian authors and showmen from YouTube to domestic platforms have so far remained generally unsuccessful, even where they lured them with cash grants. Of course, a partial blocking of American hosting will push some content makers to “move,” but some may completely refuse to continue their activities.

The state is trying to act in this direction, but so far with controversial results. Thus, on July 31, a framework law on “creative industries” was adopted, which in theory should begin the creation of Russia’s own “dream factory” in the broadest sense of this concept. And although video bloggers have not yet been allocated separately, one must assume that authors of popular science or high-quality entertainment content can still hope for some bonuses.

On the other hand, a day earlier, on July 30, a package of amendments to the Law “On Information” passed through the State Duma, which made life somewhat more difficult for bloggers. According to the new rules, channels with an audience of 10 thousand subscribers or more will have to disclose the identities of the owners and register with Roskomnadzor, otherwise they will be subject to a number of restrictions: in particular, a ban on reposting, placing advertisements and collecting donations in their favor .

It goes without saying that the new rules of the game caused some discontent among the target audience: it turns out that a major “deviator” blogger is immediately deprived of both pillars of his activity, fame and money. Obviously, it was decided to go this route, through the wallet, because there are no technical means of controlling scraps yet, and so responsibility for idols is de facto distributed among those who feed these same idols. In addition, it is likely that the regulations for registering bloggers (which have yet to be developed by Roskomnadzor) will provide for the study of their content by specialists - which means that someone will be denied registration.

Whether YouTube will be permanently blocked in the Russian Federation, or will itself refuse to continue operating in our country, or whether foreign IT giants will declare a corporate war (for example, they will begin to remove applications of Russian competitors from their stores) is still unclear. One way or another, the creation of Russia’s own digital environment is a prospect for the coming years, no matter how anyone views it.