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In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives. It worked and most Russians are n

In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives. It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit. However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia.

konart 5y ago
>However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia. I'd say Instagram is as popular. Not sure about other services.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Tik Tok is popular among young people.
  - rossmohax 5y ago
    TikTok is not western though
    - bonzini 5y ago
      It is western in the sense that it is marketed to the west. Chinese people use Douyin instead.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Tiktok is marketed to everywhere that isn't China. That's not the same as western.
- toomanydoubts 5y ago
  I'd say Pornhub is also pretty popular too. Don't ask me how I know it.
  - oh_sigh 5y ago
    According to alexa xhamster is #1: https://external-preview.redd.it/1DoqXJyNWpUH1wldP4bkwMTCu9N1b7X6h_24QfsQHnE.png?auto=webp&s=505264967e3e5fc6de2ff01433ca6431161027fd https://external-preview.redd.it/1DoqXJyNWpUH1wldP4bkwMTCu9N...
kgeist 5y ago
>In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives. > It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit As a Russian, it's the first time I'm hearing about it. Do you have a source? My impression was that the early local alternatives became more popular because they were better tailored to local realities (better localization, more detailed maps and suggestions etc.), it happened way before the government started slowing down some social networks in the late 2010's. For example, Google search initially failed to account for grammatical declension of Russian, and Yandex beat it by several years (i.e. Google would simply match words as is). Google Docs wasn't aware Ё is a letter and its spellcheck marked all words with it as a spelling error. Or when it tells you the best shop nearby to buy toothpaste is in Oklahoma. There was simply lack of investment in Russian localization because our market wasn't very important to the US. I was one of the early adopters of VK (Facebook's alternative) in 2006 and I remember Facebook wasn't even on my radar (I don't think I heard about it that much), a friend of mine simply sent me a link to VK, I got hooked and invited many more friends of mine. Zuckerberg visited Russia to promote Facebook in 2012 for the first time (the year they finally started a campaign to improve localization for Russia), but it was 6 years late. Youtube's alternative, Rutube, failed because they had nothing new to offer (in fact, I tried to use it, and it was a miserable experience) and Youtube was already widely popular. I honestly don't know why Twitter never took off here, no one uses it and there are no Russian alternatives either. What I want to say is that the local alternatives became popular long before Kremlin's crackdown on the Internet, it happened pretty organically.
- karaterobot 5y ago
  I wasn't able to find anything about Russia throttling Twitter, Facebook etc. in the early 2000s, in order to stifle or control competition. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but I couldn't find anything about it. Russia has throttled access to Twitter, listing pretty silly reasons, when really it was because they were in a lawsuit over Twitter not removing content they found objectionable. Here's a source for that: https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-net/2021 https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-net/2021
  - 5y ago
orbital-decay 5y ago
That's nonsense, top to bottom. There were no technical means for that, not to speak of the intent (the censorship laws were implemented in 2013). The centralization which made slowing something down technically possible only really began in late 2015 or so, and wasn't ready till 2018. The reason most Russians aren't on Facebook is VK and OK. Reddit just never took off because there were plenty of domestic alternatives long before it, and Twitter is super popular. And 'Russia' is not a single entity.

konart 5y ago

>However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia. I'd say Instagram is as popular. Not sure about other services.

vbezhenar 5y ago
Tik Tok is popular among young people.
- rossmohax 5y ago
  TikTok is not western though
  - bonzini 5y ago
    It is western in the sense that it is marketed to the west. Chinese people use Douyin instead.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Tiktok is marketed to everywhere that isn't China. That's not the same as western.
toomanydoubts 5y ago
I'd say Pornhub is also pretty popular too. Don't ask me how I know it.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  According to alexa xhamster is #1: https://external-preview.redd.it/1DoqXJyNWpUH1wldP4bkwMTCu9N1b7X6h_24QfsQHnE.png?auto=webp&s=505264967e3e5fc6de2ff01433ca6431161027fd https://external-preview.redd.it/1DoqXJyNWpUH1wldP4bkwMTCu9N...

kgeist 5y ago

>In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives. > It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit As a Russian, it's the first time I'm hearing about it. Do you have a source? My impression was that the early local alternatives became more popular because they were better tailored to local realities (better localization, more detailed maps and suggestions etc.), it happened way before the government started slowing down some social networks in the late 2010's. For example, Google search initially failed to account for grammatical declension of Russian, and Yandex beat it by several years (i.e. Google would simply match words as is). Google Docs wasn't aware Ё is a letter and its spellcheck marked all words with it as a spelling error. Or when it tells you the best shop nearby to buy toothpaste is in Oklahoma. There was simply lack of investment in Russian localization because our market wasn't very important to the US. I was one of the early adopters of VK (Facebook's alternative) in 2006 and I remember Facebook wasn't even on my radar (I don't think I heard about it that much), a friend of mine simply sent me a link to VK, I got hooked and invited many more friends of mine. Zuckerberg visited Russia to promote Facebook in 2012 for the first time (the year they finally started a campaign to improve localization for Russia), but it was 6 years late. Youtube's alternative, Rutube, failed because they had nothing new to offer (in fact, I tried to use it, and it was a miserable experience) and Youtube was already widely popular. I honestly don't know why Twitter never took off here, no one uses it and there are no Russian alternatives either. What I want to say is that the local alternatives became popular long before Kremlin's crackdown on the Internet, it happened pretty organically.

karaterobot 5y ago
I wasn't able to find anything about Russia throttling Twitter, Facebook etc. in the early 2000s, in order to stifle or control competition. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but I couldn't find anything about it. Russia has throttled access to Twitter, listing pretty silly reasons, when really it was because they were in a lawsuit over Twitter not removing content they found objectionable. Here's a source for that: https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-net/2021 https://freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-net/2021
- 5y ago

orbital-decay 5y ago

That's nonsense, top to bottom. There were no technical means for that, not to speak of the intent (the censorship laws were implemented in 2013). The centralization which made slowing something down technically possible only really began in late 2015 or so, and wasn't ready till 2018. The reason most Russians aren't on Facebook is VK and OK. Reddit just never took off because there were plenty of domestic alternatives long before it, and Twitter is super popular. And 'Russia' is not a single entity.