Russia has started blocking YouTube: traffic has dropped to 20% of normal levels.

Traffic on YouTube in Russia has decreased to 20% of the usual level, reports 'Current Time' citing an analysis by Mikhail Klimaryov, director of the 'Internet Protection Society'.

Currently, Google's monitoring service shows 8.5 traffic points from the Russian Federation. Before the 'slowdown', it was 40 points. So now it is approximately 20% of the normal state.

According to Klimaryov, YouTube is effectively blocked in Russia.

It is noted that the Kremlin promised to slow down YouTube's operation because the service supports Russian-speaking media and journalists who do not adhere to the Kremlin's policies regarding the war in Ukraine. Users began to complain about access issues to the video service in July. In December, access problems with YouTube increased, but this time on mobile devices.

On December 19, Roskomnadzor threatened to restrict access to YouTube. The regulator claimed that Google does not operate in Russia, does not support its servers, but blocks Russian channels. Roskomnadzor stated that the reason for the restrictions is violations of Russian legislation.

It should be noted that Google was fined 20 decillion dollars for blocking pro-Kremlin channels on YouTube. The court also ordered Google to restore some blocked channels. The fine of 20 decillion dollars was significantly larger than the global economy.

Moreover, Meta announced the creation of its own search engine based on artificial intelligence, which will provide up-to-date information about current events through the Meta AI chatbot.