‘A far-fetched problem’ — YouTube slowing down the transfer of content to Russian hosting sites?

The problem really exists

As the Rutube press service informed Realnoe Vremya, there really is a problem with transferring content to hosting from YouTube:

“The problem with transferring content from YouTube does exist, since the service blocks this process from Russian and even foreign IP addresses, usually the ban appears within 12 hours," explained in the service.

The hosting also assured that they are keeping the situation under control:

“Nevertheless, the Rutube team controls the situation and does everything possible so that domestic authors can freely upload their content to our platform. As a result, bloggers continue to successfully use our YouTube content transfer feature, it just sometimes takes a little longer.

The publication also sent a request to VK. However, the press service declined to comment.

“We don't see any problems with YouTube”

There are three ways to upload videos to VK, Denis Suprunov, co-founder of the influence marketing agency DrygMedia, told Realnoe Vremya. The first is through the developed “Download from YouTube” page, then all content is transferred to the account. The second way is to transfer a specific video from YouTube, the third is to download the original from your own disk.

“VK downloads absolutely fine in any way — both through a link, and through a link to a specific video, and through a link to the entire channel with the transfer of all content," Suprunov said.

At the same time, difficulties arise in the work of Rutube. According to the source of the publication, the function of transferring videos from YouTube to the Russian hosting just does not work. At the same time, the administration of the domestic service recommends using this method. One have to download content directly from your own media.

“It is difficult to understand which of the services is slowing down. It is not possible to transfer videos from YouTube to Rutube, although everything works with VK. Thus, an indirect conclusion can be drawn that the cause of the problem is on the Rutube side. If you answer the question of whether YouTube puts sticks in the wheels when transferring videos to other resources, then there are no problems at all. We don't see any problems with the hosting," the marketer said.

Moreover, Suprunov noted that the company does not use a VPN at all to upload content from YouTube. Although it had to be turned on two days ago to download it, at the moment it works without an auxiliary service.

In general, the speaker is confident that even if YouTube blocks the function of transferring content to other sites, it will be possible to upload videos using a VPN. In addition, the lack of a function will not be critical anyway, since content makers store materials on their own disks and computers.

“We don't see a problem”

Alexander Firsov, brand producer of UniverTV, expressed a similar point of view in a conversation with the publication. Slowing down the transfer is not a problem, he is sure:

“Show me at least one professional channel, no matter TV or blogger channel, who does not store the produced content somewhere on physical media/servers/cloud storage and sends it to hosting, and then solemnly deletes it? This is an unprofessional approach. Therefore, by and large, we download from there and do not use the transfer, which means we do not see the problem.

As for the slowdown itself, Firsov said that some failures are still being observed, but they are not critical.

“Yes, there are failures in terms of speed during the transfer, but the system as a whole is not perfect. Probably a simple advice to colleagues: store content on servers / hard drives so as not to worry about transferring it from hosting to hosting in the future. In general, it sincerely seems to me that there is a far-fetched problem here," he believes.

“People will still find workarounds just in case”

The possibility of a real slowdown in the transfer of content cannot be ruled out, says Azamat Sirazhitdinov, CEO of GO Digital. In particular, the restriction may be focused not specifically on Russian hosting, but on protecting the content of YouTube itself.

“This is an expected action, because for YouTube, content is the main value. Hosting is No. 1 among all video platforms. All people go there for the content. Obviously, they will defend it in every possible way," he said.

In his opinion, experts will soon begin to create tools to circumvent this restriction.:

“Even if the rumours about the restriction are not confirmed, the tools will appear. People will still find workarounds just in case. There is no smoke without fire. In case restrictions are imposed, people will look for ways to protect their interests.”

Sirazhitdinov argued: “We have seen a lot of examples of how Western software vendors said one thing and did another, or completely kept silent, and in one day they disabled Russian accounts.”

Checking by Realnoe Vremya

Realnoe Vremya tried to transfer content from YouTube to Rutube on its own. The download of two videos started at 12 am. It was still not over at 6.30 pm.

When the download started on Rutube, a window opened with the following information:

At the same time, there are no problems when downloading videos from YouTube. Direct download of the original to Rutube also proceeds without difficulties.

When transferring a video from YouTube to VK, the following window opens:

YouTube audience in Russia decreased by 5 million

Over the year, the YouTube audience in Russia decreased by 5 million to 47 million users, Izvestia reports. According to experts, this is due to a slowdown in its operation.

At the same time, YouTube does not lose its position in the ranking of the most popular resources — it remains in 6th place, as it was last year.

The first five in the list has not changed — WhatsApp*, Yandex, Google, Telegram, VK. Telegram's audience has grown the most over the year, reaching 63 million people in September compared to 55 million in 2023.