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Russians Love YouTube. That’s a Problem for the Kremlin

YouTube remains the only major US-based social media platform available in Russia. It’s become "indispensable" to everyday people, making a ban tricky. Journalists and dissidents are taking advantage.

In a follow-up video, Navalny continues to break down the failed murder plot in front of a wall featuring each of the men’s photos, maps of the operation, and red twine connecting everything. In a statement, a spokesperson for YouTube insisted that if the company has concerns that legal requests are being used to silence dissidents, “we will push back”—noting that Russian courts have fined Google in the past for refusing to comply with its orders. YouTube says it has removed more than 12,000 channels and over 140,000 videos relating to the war in Ukraine for violating the platform’s policies—including pro-Putin propagandists, Kremlin-controlled media outlets, and content from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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