Thousands of Russians complain of YouTube outages

Thousands of Russian users have complained of a massive YouTube outage on August 8, saying they could not access the website from internet browsers or phones.
This is just the latest in a series of reports of YouTube outages across the country amid fears that authorities may block the website entirely, the Kyiv Independent reported.
At the time of publication, the monitoring service sboy.rf has registered about 11,500 complaints, with 20% of them registered in Moscow and 8% in St. Petersburg.
Some commenters on the DTF platform are reporting that videos are not loading on the YouTube mobile and Android apps as well.
The state news agency RIA Novosti writes that when trying to access YouTube, the browser displays a notification that there is no connection.
It is not yet clear whether the outage is a direct result of interference by Russian authorities.
Earlier this week, independent publication Meduza reported that the Russian government had informed telecommunications operators in the country that YouTube would be slowed down to 128 kilobytes per second.
For now, the authorities have decided not to shut down YouTube completely, but to slow it down significantly. | BGNES