Russia To Slow YouTube Speeds (yahoo.com) 71
Russia admitted that it's deliberately slowing YouTube's loading speeds and said it plans to throttle the download speeds on the Google platform by up to 70% by the end of next week. Russia is taking this stand in response to Google's refusal to comply with the demands of the Russian authorities, local lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein said. From a report: Khinshtein, the head of the State Duma's Information Policy Committee, claimed that the move is "not aimed against Russian users, but against the administration of a foreign resource that still believes that it can violate and ignore our legislation with impunity."
What an idiot (Score:3)
And yet the Russian users will end up having to live with the degraded service; does this fucking idiot seriously think users will blame Google, when it'll be super-easy for Google to state (and prove) the Russian users' own government is responsible for it?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Just like the Chinese have been doing for ages now. I think users will cope and gradually move to other services. Some will use proxies just like the Chinese do, but in the long term - local services will prevail.
It is a good thing Russia cannot send SWAT teams to enforce their laws like some other country did to the MEGA upload guy and his New Zealand company.
Re: (Score:2)
It will be mostly the All Putin Speeches channel, the Putin Rides A Dangerous Animal channel, the Putin Loves Biker Gangs channel, and the War Is Going Great! channel, plus the Russian Teletubbies variant where the smiling sun is replaced by an disapproving Putin face.
Re: What an idiot (Score:2)
They'll call it... "Putube" pronounced "poo-tube."
Re: What an idiot (Score:1)
Re: What an idiot (Score:1)
Re: What an idiot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
He's Putin's Bagdad Bob [wikipedia.org].
And he has to know it.
Re: (Score:2)
They will blame who they're told to.
Re: (Score:2)
They will blame their government and not Google, yes. But they will use the local services the government controls, because those work and YouTube doesn't. Putin gets what he wants, and he won't care if the people believe the official line as to who is to blame or not.
Re: What an idiot (Score:1)
That might be a hard pill to swallow. It would be kind of like telling them that they're not allowed to have Adidas track suits anymore.
Re: (Score:2)
That might be a hard pill to swallow. It would be kind of like telling them that they're not allowed to have Adidas track suits anymore.
But then a polonium cocktail or Dioxin soup might get them in line.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: What an idiot (Score:1)
Putin is a trained Soviet KGB agent, his father was well entrenched into the Soviet government, he knows exactly how these things work, just as when Lenin came to power, the majority of people will not believe this can be happening (again) until millions end up disappearing and hundreds per day wash up on the shores of the Volga with bullet holes to the back of the head.
Putin has not been shy about wanting to re-establish a Russian Communist empire, he believes himself to be a Lenin type figure.
Re: "Our legislation" (Score:4, Insightful)
Wankers.
Isolation for control (Score:3)
I'm sure Putin would love to block foreign Internet entirely and replace it with Kremlin-approved and controlled Russian servers.
It's interesting that he hasn't, because it means he doesn't think he'd get away with it.
YouTube may not care (Score:3)
Because of the military-related sanctions, I doubt YouTube can make much money in Russia anyhow. YouTube might not care. Russia probably needs it working more than Google because YouTube is where all the tutorials on fixing Microsoft crap is.
Re: (Score:2)
I despise youtube tutorials in general for that sort of thing. At least we can now ask AI to watch the video and summarize it for us in easy-to-follow text bullet points.
Re: (Score:3)
I wouldn't mind it if all of Russia was BGP null-routed. It'd cut down on all the horse crap attacks we have to deal with. Imagine Russian hackers having to leave Russia to gain access to their bot farms and the fun that certain rendition teams could have...
That 'splains it (Score:2)
They recently purchased my Comcast simulator to achieve this.
Re: (Score:1)
The Comcast simulator is actually available here free of charge: https://github.com/tylertreat/... [github.com]
Re: (Score:1)
sshhh, Putie didn't know that. He sent his researchers to the front line.
Re: (Score:2)
Demands of Russian Authorities (Score:5, Informative)
Oh no. Anway... (Score:3)
Isn't Google supposed to be not doing business with Russia?
Re: (Score:1)
They're probably hoping that Russian users will switch to a Russian video-hosting platform, but can anyone even *name* one of those? I cannot. I know the name of a Russian web search engine, but I don't know
Re: (Score:1)
Google and YouTube doesn't show ads to Russian viewers
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Oh no. Anway... (Score:2)
UBlock origin
Clean YouTube
Sponsorblock
You're welcome
Re: (Score:2)
And what happens when Google finishes rolling out Manifest V3 in Google-owned Chrome so that these plugins can no longer block ads on Google-owned YouTube?
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing to me, since I run Firefox.
Maybe something to you, if you're fool enough to run Chrome.
Putin is weak (Score:5, Insightful)
He can easily handle one or two credible threats to his dictatorship but when the economy collapses he's going to have them from all sides and sooner or later one of them is going to get him and he knows it.
This is why dictators suck. They're good at staying in power not at running a country
No way am I taking that bet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
5 months and Putin is out of power, eh? Wanna bet? As in, real money?
Look. The reality is Putin is far too invested in doinking men so no. Anyone as gay as Putin cannot possibly be evil.
Anyone supporting Putin is therefore, naturally, uber-triple-gay. Putin is in charge of the gayest regime known to man!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not convinced that ANYBODY, or any system of government, if good at running a country. Certainly laissez faire won't work beyond about the very small village level. (It even has trouble WITHIN a nuclear family.)
That said, some kings have occasionally done an acceptable job. (I'm not claiming this is true of most, or even many, of them.) And a king is pretty much like a dictator. So it's not inherent the "dictator" position unless you think that inherited tradition is what made the occasional "good
Re: (Score:2)
Firstly, all the enlightened royal houses of history that I can think of delegated decision making to a class of competent civil servants with a strong sense of duty. So the kings themselves were pretty much just parasites.
Secondly, royal succession is a real problem that causes endless wars. In a nutshell, wherever there is a king without democracy, it is impossible to replace a bad ruler peacefully. The only way is violence and lots of it. That's why king
What say you, Alexander Khinshtein? (Score:4, Insightful)
[Retard] Alexander Khinshtein said: "not aimed against Russian users, but against the administration of a foreign resource that still believes that it can violate and ignore our legislation with impunity."
Oh, you mean like how Putin violates and ignores international law with its illegal war crimes in Ukraine? Just like that?
You know you're weak (Score:3)
This is just another in a long series of edicts the muscovite midget has implemented to keep the truth from the Russian people. He certainly doesn't want them to know about the 560,000 russians killed, wounded, captured, or missing [businessinsider.com] since February 2022. He certainly doesn't want them to know how all Russian ships have fled Crimea [newsweek.com] after a third of the Black Sea Fleet was either sunk or damaged. How Ukraine can hit Russian oil depots and refineries [reuters.com] almost at will. Or jailing people who tell the truth [cbsnews.com] about how badly Russia is losing in its war against Ukraine.
This is just another attempt by Putin to cling to power before his house of cards folds under him.
Re: (Score:2)
Compared to the stated objectives, Russia is indeed losing very badly in Ukraine.
Unfortunately, Putin has a lot of warm bodies to sacrifice and Russia isn't losing from Ukraine's perspective: Russia still controls Ukrainian territory and is even slightly expanding what they've taken. Russia is still destroying Ukrainian infrastructure and killing its people.
Re: (Score:2)
Russia is losing 3 to 5 people for every Ukrainian killed. They may have more warm bodies, but they don't have an endless supply. It is already feeling the effects of losing so many people by businesses running short of people to do jobs.
Putin is doing everything he can to avoid another mandatory conscription. The last time he did it hundreds of thousands of people fled the country. Doing it a second time would have almost the same result.
Re: (Score:2)
At this point, I am absolutely rooting for the fall of Russia, even with all the chaos that will ensue.
The last time we tried to accept Russia into the modern world, it used the opportunity to stir up shit everywhere. Now I just want it gone, along with any citizens who can't let go of the old ways.
Re: (Score:2)
When you can't let the truth about your actions be known. This is just another attempt by Putin to cling to power before his house of cards folds under him.
Slashdot should start posting all manner of anti-Pootin' stuff and see if we can get banned there.
Re: You know you're weak (Score:1)
The same was said about Lenin and his Bolshevik Revolution, any day now, any day now, as people hid their wealth, got shot for daring to say something and women between 15 and 25 were socialized.
Putler's legitimacy down the tubes (Score:2)
This shows just how weak the Russian government really is. They have to run a propaganda campaign against YouTube and then incrementally slow it down so when they finally block it people will accept it and not shit all over the state.
Consequence of slowdown (Score:3)
Not unusual (Score:1)
Is Russia asking for things to be done that exceed what other countries have requested and had Google has done?
Well, we know that Google is used by the US State Department as a tool for regime change operations (see when google met wikileaks). So I expect there's probably some reason why we're being fed the usual hysterics.
Re: (Score:1)
It's not working.
Youtube slows down itself... (Score:2)
This actually won't harm Russians (Score:2)