Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    The unbearable sameness of Liquid Glass

    September 15, 2025

    OpenAI Ramps Up Robotics Work in Race Toward AGI

    September 15, 2025

    Facebook gave our data to Cambridge Analytica and all I got was this $38.36

    September 15, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » Russians Love YouTube. That’s a Problem for the Kremlin
    Security

    Russians Love YouTube. That’s a Problem for the Kremlin

    News RoomBy News RoomJune 6, 20243 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    Milov stresses that YouTube isn’t just a one-way service: Because it allows users to comment and chat anonymously, it provides an extraordinary chance for regular Russians to express themselves without fear of censorship.

    “The amount of our feedback is enormous,” he says. “Just myself, alone, I literally get messages, every day, from at least hundreds of people from across the country. When something serious happens? Thousands.” Sometimes, Milov says, his first indication that something terrible has happened in Russia is seeing just how many unread messages he has in his YouTube inbox.

    Milov says this feedback reinforces the idea, supported even by Kremlin-approved pollsters, that opposition to the war in Ukraine is growing. But it also provides some important details and nuance. “So this is like, I would say, an enormous focus group, with which you can also communicate. You can ask them questions back.” He chuckles, thinking of the notorious Russian security and intelligence agency: “You know, the FSB would kill for this kind of information.”

    “Obviously, the question is, why didn’t Putin shut down YouTube?” Milov says. “It’s easier said than done.”

    In recent years, Moscow has deployed an array of strategies to cow and kill independent media and the open internet in Russia. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok have been blocked altogether. Independent media like Meduza, TV Rain, and The Insider have been declared “undesirable” or labeled “foreign agents.”

    Through it all, YouTube has survived.

    Milov says the Kremlin was too slow to move on YouTube. By the time Moscow was banning other popular Western platforms, the Google-owned video platform had become indispensable to everyday Russians. “They kind of let the genie out of the bottle,” Milov says.

    “YouTube is mommies showing cartoons to kids, teenagers are watching music videos, people are watching comedians, elderly folks watching old Soviet movies, which are widely available there, and so on,” he says. “And you shut it all down? So you have these empty evenings now, from this point on.”

    Unable to disrupt YouTube, the Kremlin tried desperately to compete with it.

    Moscow had high hopes for Rutube, a long-suffering YouTube clone which was relaunched in 2020 after a merger with the media arm of state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. If the site’s “top videos” section is to be believed, it hasn’t worked—some had racked up view counts in the mid-thousands.

    VK, Russia’s answer to Facebook, has fared slightly better with its video-sharing platform, and it is rife with pro-Kremlin broadcasters. But even its most popular channels have just a tiny fraction of the biggest Russian-language YouTube accounts.

    “It’s like a big room, but it’s empty,” Milov says of these Kremlin-backed alternatives.

    Having failed to compete with his online critics, Milov believes Putin opted for a more direct strategy. Just days before I arrived in Vilnius, thugs appeared outside the home of Leonid Volkov, former chair of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and Nalvany chief of staff. Armed with hammers, they savagely beat him. Lithuanian intelligence believe the men arrested were operating on orders from Russia. A week after the attack, Volkov was back on YouTube, his arm in a sling, “I am not going to stop—although I will gesticulate less in the coming weeks,” he said.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleWhy the EU’s Vice President Isn’t Worried About Moon-Landing Conspiracies on YouTube
    Next Article Google makes its note-taking AI NotebookLM more useful

    Related Posts

    A New Platform Offers Privacy Tools to Millions of Public Servants

    September 15, 2025

    Apple’s Big Bet to Eliminate the iPhone’s Most Targeted Vulnerabilities

    September 13, 2025

    Defense Department Scrambles to Pretend It’s Called the War Department

    September 12, 2025

    US Investment in Spyware Is Skyrocketing

    September 11, 2025

    Cindy Cohn Is Leaving the EFF, but Not the Fight for Digital Rights

    September 11, 2025

    Massive Leak Shows How a Chinese Company Is Exporting the Great Firewall to the World

    September 10, 2025
    Our Picks

    OpenAI Ramps Up Robotics Work in Race Toward AGI

    September 15, 2025

    Facebook gave our data to Cambridge Analytica and all I got was this $38.36

    September 15, 2025

    The Supreme Court is Google’s last hope to avoid an Epic reckoning in October

    September 15, 2025

    Meta leaks its new smart glasses with a display

    September 15, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    Games

    ‘Hades II’ Is Coming to Nintendo Switch This Month

    By News RoomSeptember 15, 2025

    Nintendo’s Switch and Switch 2 release calendars are bulking up. During a packed Nintendo Direct…

    Google thinks it can have AI summaries and a healthy web, too

    September 15, 2025

    A New Platform Offers Privacy Tools to Millions of Public Servants

    September 15, 2025

    How China’s Propaganda and Surveillance Systems Really Operate

    September 15, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.