It was the last Western social media platform still available
After weeks of rumors, it’s now official: YouTube, the last Western social media platform still available in Russia, has reportedly stopped working.
This means that people in the country now need to use on the best VPN apps to keep accessing the platform.
Counting over 93 million users across the country, YouTube became a target of the Kremlin earlier in July when authorities began throttling and slowing down access to the video-sharing platform.
Russian independent news outlet Meduza already reported at that time about plans to « permanently block » YouTube in September. However, it now looks like Russian censors have been moving faster than was originally planned.
« Thousands of users have reported that they can’t watch any videos or access YouTube’s site », tweeted Meduza on August 8, 2024 (see tweet above).
UK-based internet watchdog NetBlocks also confirmed a « sudden marked reduction » in traffic starting from Thursday morning. How to unblock YouTube in Russia
While the internet in Russia gets increasingly restricted, there are still some workarounds you can use to bypass blocks – with the most popular being VPN software.
