“The president told me these are just troublemakers and promised to sort it out”
Head of "Russian Hollywood" complains to Putin about slowing down of YouTube.
“In my opinion, there is no point in slowing down YouTube,” said Karen Shakhnazarov, general director of the Russian film production studio Mosfilm, on Russian state TV about his recent meeting with the Russian leader. “The president replied to me that these are just troublemakers [“всякие пакости”] and also said: 'I'll sort it out'. Shakhnazarov added that he also tried to explain to Putin that many people watch films on YouTube and that the slowdown causes dissatisfaction among them. Shakhnazarov also pointed out that it's easy to circumvent YouTube's block with today's technology. The state-owned Mosfilm studio was founded in 1924 and has since produced a number of iconic films, including the works of Andrei Tarkovsky.
Today, Mosfilm's capacity is much more limited than in its glory days in the Soviet Union. While Mosfilm has 58.225 thousand subscribers on the Russian video hosting platform Rutube, the main Mosfilm YouTube channel has 6.52 million subscribers, making the platform a significant source of monetisation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Friday that the conversation about YouTube between Putin and Shakhnazarov had taken place: “Yes, this issue was raised and the president said that he would look into this problem, although there is also a part of this problem that is exclusively related to the position of the owner of this service,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russia's state-controlled Interfax news agency. “The position of the [YouTube] owner is aimed at not complying with the laws of the Russian Federation… The company…
is not updating the necessary equipment,” Peskov told journalists, adding that the problems with YouTube “are not among the priority issues on people's agenda. This is not the most important thing at the moment”. Fully operating The Global Check website, which monitors the availability of online services, reports that YouTube is 100% up and running in Russia on Friday morning. Meanwhile, earlier this year, many users in Russia complained about difficulties accessing YouTube without a VPN. This summer Russian deputy Alexander Khinstein commented on the gradual slowdown of YouTube: “Let me emphasise again: everything that is happening is a consequence of the anti-Russian policy of the hosting service, which consistently removes the channels of our public figures (bloggers, journalists, artists), whose position differs from the Western point of view.
If YouTube does not change its policy and does not begin to comply with our laws, nothing good awaits it here.” While Vladimir Putin characterises the issue with YouTube's slowdown as “troublemaking” [“всякие пакости”], it is Russia's state internet watchdog Roskomnadzor that is responsible for online access to it in Russia. Recently, Roskomnadzor even warned internet providers to stop efforts to speed up YouTube loading speeds, The Moscow Times reported. Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, YouTube has become one of the main platforms for Russian audiences to circumvent state censorship. After many journalists and anti-war activists fled the country, many of them are trying to reach audiences in Russia via YouTube. Including the Barents Observer – please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
