YouTube may be blocked in Russia by the fall, when the Russian RuTube service will work normally. This was stated by a member of the Council under the President of Russia for the development of civil society and human rights, the president of the research and technology company "Kribrum" Igor Ashmanov, he is quoted by TASS.
According to him, you need to count on the fact that YouTube will eventually be blocked. Ashmanov recalled that on the eve of the owner of the video hosting – Google – was fined for not removing "forbidden content."
“It will end someday. I think this will end by the fall, when Rutube will work normally, VKontakte video will become more or less independent hosting. When these services begin to function normally, [YouTube] will be replaced."
Back in April, Ashmanov said that it was necessary to prepare for blocking YouTube, since the video hosting did not plan to negotiate with the Russian authorities on the issue of compliance with the law.
On July 18, the World Court of the Tagansky District of Moscow imposed a turnover fine of 21 billion 77 million rubles on Google for refusing to remove “inaccurate information about the course of the special operation” from YouTube. This is the second turnover fine for Google. The first, in the amount of 7.2 billion rubles, was imposed in December 2021, also for refusing to remove prohibited information. The company was also ordered to pay an additional 505 million rubles as an enforcement fee.
Active attempts by the Russian authorities to popularize RuTube began in 2020 after the poisoning of the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation Alexei Navalny and further rallies in his support in January 2021, as well as the conflict between Russia and the West that escalated against this background. The Agency and Important Stories wrote about it. On May 9, 2022, the Russian "analogue of YouTube", in which the administration of the President of the Russian Federation invested billions of rubles, was hacked and stopped working.
The Insider wrote how the incompetence of the service's management, the use of new technologies for cyberattacks, and internal sabotage could be the reasons for the RuTube hack. The ex-head of Roskomnadzor, Alexander Zharov, who oversees the development of the service, is to blame for this, Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the non-profit organization Internet Defense Society, told The Insider. Zharov himself earned seven times more in 10 months of work on the creation of RuTube than in 8 years of work in the RKN – almost 300 million rubles.