According to Mediascope data (cited by Kommersant), Russians spent more time on YouTube in the first six months of 2022 than previously. They spent on average about 84 minutes per day on the site in this period, then 87 minutes in July and 88 minutes in August. Among the reasons for this trend could be news fatigue and a desire for …
YouTube used increasingly in Russia mainly for entertainment purposes Read More
On Monday Russia fined Google 21.1 billion rubles (some $263 million at the pre-war exchange rate, $360 million at the current rate) for repeatedly failing to remove prohibited content on its YouTube video platform. Censorship on the Russian Internet has been on the rise over the past few years, reaching totalitarian heights since the beginning …
The authority installed by occupying Russian troops in Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson announced on Wednesday that access to Instagram and YouTube is now blocked locally. Officials acknowledge, however, that the American social networks are still available through VPNs. Occupying forces in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions disabled mobile Internet service by Ukrainian telecoms back in late …
Pro-Russian authority in Kherson cuts access to Instagram and YouTube Read More
Just weeks after Yandex sold its news aggregation and online entertainment services, another key player of Russia’s online ecosystem, Sber, has deprived itself from important digital assets. A company called Novye Vozmozhnosti (New Possibilities) is the new owner of the music service SberZvuk (previously Zvooq.ru, acquired by Sber in Aprill 2021); the video streaming service Okko (aquired …
Targeted by western sanctions, Sber has to part with key digital assets Read More
Ads to access Spotify Premium, Netflix Premium, Pornhub and VPN services are flourishing in Russia — be it on the darkness or on legitimate classifieds platforms such as Avito. Russian business daily Kommersant found no fewer than 60 ads to access Spotify, most often offering offer to join a foreign family account. Meanwhile, 57 Spotify account …
Cheap access to top international video platforms available on Russian darknet Read More
Amazon is suspending access to Prime Video for customers based in Russia amid the country’s invasion of Ukraine. In a blog post about the announcement, the company also noted that it has suspended the shipment of retail products to customers based in Russia and Belarus. Amazon will also no longer be accepting new Russia and Belarus-based AWS …
Amazon suspends access to Prime Video in Russia, halts shipments to the country Read More
The Russian authorities have been sinking money into domestic alternatives to YouTube for over a year, says a new investigation from iStories and Agentstvo. Allegedly, these Russian video platforms are meant to serve as substitutes in the event that Russia’s censorship agency bans YouTube altogether. However, sources say the country’s leadership doesn’t believe that anything will come of …
How Russian authorities invest in domestic alternatives to YouTube Read More
Roskomnadzor, the Russian Internet and telecom regulator, will require Netflix to offer state television channels to its Russian customers after it added the U.S.-based streaming service to its register of “audio-visual services” Tuesday. Roskomnadzor’s register, which was created in late 2020, applies to online streaming services with over 100,000 daily users and requires them to comply …
Russia to require Netflix to stream state television broadcasts Read More
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecom and Internet regulator, is threatening to restrict access to YouTube after the video platform shut down yet another German-language channel run by the Russian state-controlled television network RT (Russia Today). According to a Roskomnadzor press release published on Friday, December 17, the federal censor sent a letter to YouTube’s parent company, Google, demanding that …
Russia threatens to block YouTube for taking down another German RT channel Read More
The Russian government has decried YouTube’s decision to delete the state-funded RT broadcaster’s German-language channels as “information warfare” and said it will block German media in Russia in retaliation. The video streaming website on Tuesday deleted RT’s DE and DFP channels for breaching coronavirus misinformation policy. “This is a real media war declared by the state of …
Russia vows “retaliation” for YouTube blocking RT’s German channels Read More
Susan Wojcicki, chief executive officer at Google’s YouTube, said the internet giant still holds free speech as a “core value,” in the company’s first public comments since it acceded to a Russian government order to remove material from political opponents. Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc. pulled a voting app from opposition leader Alexey Navalny ahead of …
YouTube CEO responds to Russia censorship accusations Read More
You’ll now be able to watch videos on YouTube and almost any other service with the aid of automatic English-Russian translation dubbing. This could be really helpful to those studying Russian. Meanwhile, Yandex says more language pairs will be added to the system soon. “To completely erase language barriers on the internet is one of our biggest challenges. We set about …
Yandex introduces automatic English-Russian video dubbing feature Read More
