In Russia, YouTube is being throttled; however, there is a method to bypass this restriction.

In Russia, if you are having trouble loading YouTube videos, it’s not because of a problem with your internet link or with the software. Reports from recently said that Russia wants to slow down the video-sharing site by as much as 70% by the end of next week.

A person who did not want to be named told the Russian independent news site Meduza on July 12, 2024, that there are also plans to “permanently block” YouTube in September.

YouTube is the last Western social media site that works in Russia right now. It has over 93 million users all over the country. You can’t get to sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter unless you use one of the best VPN services. Even worse, it is getting more and more dangerous in the country to use these tools to get around restrictions.

Why does Russia slow down YouTube?

Alexander Khinshtein, head of Russia’s technology committee in the parliament, wrote on Telegram on Thursday, July 25 that the move is “a result of the host’s anti-Russian policy.” Along with that, he said that the rule will only affect people who use desktops.

Khinshtein specifically said that YouTube “repeatedly deletes channels of our public figures (bloggers, reporters, artists) with positions that differ from the Western point of view.”

This is not true, though, and international civil groups strongly disagree with it. In May of last year, more than 20 groups asked the company that owns Google to stop helping Russia censor free speech. They said they were upset that since February, more anti-war videos and channels had been stopped.

Not only that, but YouTube filtering is said to have started two weeks before Khinshtein’s post, on July 11.

At first, though, Russian officials denied being involved. Rostelcom, the country’s telecom company, said the loss was caused by technical issues.

The next day, a person close to the presidential administration told the news site Gazeta.Ru that Russia is going to “finally block YouTube in September.”

The Russian digital rights group Roskomsvoboda is told that watching videos is still possible, but that it gets harder as the quality of the videos goes up.

“There is a very good chance that YouTube will be completely blocked if the censors fail to reach their goals,” Stanislav Shakirov, CTO at Roskomsvoboda, told me. “Their goals are probably to unblock and block certain channels.”

Shakirov says that the government wants to get rid of YouTube and replace it with Russian sites like VK media or RuTube so that they can have more control over the material. He told us: “Those who will want to see independent political content will watch YouTube using a VPN.”

Do you need a VPN for Russia?

A virtual private network, or VPN, is a piece of security software that hides your internet links so that you can be more private online. It also hides your real IP address, which makes your internet service provider (ISP) think you’re browsing from a different place very quickly. This second skill is exactly what you need to get around blocking and other geo-restrictions put in place by the government.

As we already said, Russia blocks a lot of websites, including many news sites and even the official sites of VPN providers. This includes other big social media sites.

Russia VPNs are becoming more and more important, but the government is actually trying to stop people from using them. VPN services have been the target of censorship campaigns for a long time. As of March, a new rule makes it illegal to share information about how to get around internet restrictions.

Around 25 famous VPN apps were taken down from the country’s Apple App Store early in July. People who know about this worry that the next target could be the Google Play Store.

Even though it’s getting harder to download a VPN app, there are still some ways to get around the rules.

“There are still working VPNs available in the App Store on Apple devices, that you can install and which will allow you to bypass restrictions,” Shakirov said. “Also 95% of Russian users use Android, not the iPhone.”

As a general rule, you should get as many VPN apps as you can. You could then switch between services if one got blocked. To find the safest free VPN services, check out our guide to the best ones on the market. But be careful, because in Russia, only a few free VPNs are safe to use.

Roskomsvoboda has even made its own VPN service called Amnezia Free. As a self-hosted VPN, you can set it up on your own computer. “But there are also a couple of VPN providers focused on Russia: RedShield and Xeovo,” Shakirov said.

I suggest using sideloading on an Android device if you are having trouble getting the VPN you want. Also, keep an eye out for other download pages and services. As an example, Le VPN, which was hit by the latest VPN filtering campaign on the Apple App Store, launched a new service that hides your VPN connections and connects you to some secret servers using third-party open-source software.

There are other options besides VPNs as well, so check them out as well. For example, the Tor Browser is a good choice because it hides your IP address and reroutes your internet data through at least three layers of encryption. Similarly, FreeBrowser is a similar app that you can use on Android phones and tablets to unlock material that is blocked in your area.