IMI sources: YouTube speed drops in the occupied parts of Donetsk oblast

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The occupied part of Ukraine's Donetsk oblast is seeing a significant drop in YouTube speed due to Russia's policy, reports the Institute of Mass Information representative in Donetsk oblast after speaking with her sources.

In occupied Donetsk, YouTube videos are now uploading much slower, which makes viewing the content impossible, a source has said.

A person from occupied Mariupol has said anonymously that they only watch YouTube videos through a VPN.

"Without it on your computer, the quality drops to 240p, and it's blurry. Everything is out of focus. Also, the picture gets stuck while the sound goes on. The phone is also very glitchy: the picture is still while the sound is playing. Or it isn't, and it's just the download wheel spinning. With a VPN, even a free one, it works great as we're used to. I don't know how others have it," the Mariupol resident says.

Earlier, Russian media reported that the Russian authorities had informed the largest telecom operators in the country that playback speed of YouTube videos would drop to 128 kilobits per second.

As IMI reported, YouTube has faced heavy criticism in Russia for taking down channels that broadcast Russian state media. Russia has also fined Google on many occasions for failing to remove content Russia considers illegal or undesirable.

YouTube blocked the channels of many Russian propagandists following Russia's full-scale invasion into Ukraine.