Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 23 – In the month since the Russian government slowed YouTube, Russians cut back in the amount of movies and entertainment programs they watched but increased the amount of time they spent viewing news and information programs by 30 percent, hardly what the Kremlin wanted, Mikhail Klimaryov says.
The director of the Russian Society for the Defense of the Internet says that as a result, the total amount of time Russians spent on YouTube remained just about where it was prior to the Kremlin-ordered slowdown (youtube.com/watch?v=5xGpeGZIvxE reposted in part at semnasem.org/articles/2024/08/23/mesyac-zamedleniya-youtube).
One factor at work, Klimaryov says, is that the slowdown did not hit all regions equally. Some providers did not know quite how to act, others openly resisted, and some were lobbied hard by users and lobbied the authorities themselves to prevent the ordered slowdown from taking full effect and costing them money.
It is entirely possible, he continues, that these problems may be overcome and that in the future some current YouTube users will stop turning to that service. But Klimaryov says he is confident that the interest in news is such that most will continue to use YouTube for that or turn to other news providers like Telegram.
The internet defender says that in his opinion, Moscow will not try to shutdown YouTube completely anytime soon. Instead, they will impose more restrictions in salami-style fashion. But that will allow YouTube’s audience time to find “a new platform for socio-political discussions,” something that will also run counter to the Kremlin’s interests.
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