@traders Hey guys, first of all thanks to everyone for trading on this market!

So, 2024 came to an end, so it's time for a resoluton:

WhatsApp, Wikipedia, Reddit and Telegram seems to didn't got blocked this year, so I'm resolving them as No.

YouTube in Russia got F***ED this year, so really the only question I feel that I have is "Should it be resolved to 90%, to 95% or to a 100%?"

Here is one recent news article by the way: YouTube Practically ‘Blocked’ In Russia, Expert Says, As Traffic Plummets (December 24th, 2024)

I mean...for all I know YouTube is still can be opened in Russia, though you can't watch videos, only reading comments and text posts is available, believe it or not. Yeah and you also can't even view pictures in those text posts, since all static graphic YouTube content was blocked long ago. So, to me it looks like a "Resolved to 95%" resolution. Does anyone have any objections? :)

@McLovin more detailed information:

1. YouTube is reportedly watchable if one prevents packet inspection with software (which, to be clear, doesn't route any traffic through other countries);

2. there exists at least one network which doesn't block YouTube and instead offers it at high speed (> 100 Mbps); that has no bearing on whole population, though.

@McLovin It depends on the internet provider and geographic location. Where I live, YouTube is still mostly functional, although the resolution isn't great and sometimes it pauses.

I advise to resolve to the percentage of incoming traffic from russia that has been cut by roscomnadzor. You can see it clearly in the graphs in Google transparency reports. This way it will be objective.

@McLovin https://transparencyreport.google.com/traffic/overview?hl=en&fraction_traffic=start:1703980800000;end:1735689599999;product:21;region:RU&lu=fraction_traffic

@CyfralCoot wow this is a great suggestion I think! It..doesn’t include a VPN traffic, right? And, according to this, the correct resolution should be 75%, basically? Since the score got moved from usual 40 to roughly 10 during the year, so it’s, like, a 75% loss in traffic we had?

@McLovin It's not explicitly written on the docs page, but most likely VPN isn't included. I mean, how do you detect with certainty from which region is VPN traffic coming from?

@CyfralCoot ok thank you, I guess I also think that VPNs are likely not really included.

@traders guys, well, new plan: to resolve YouTube to 75% as this is basically the drop in traffic during 2024 reported by Google, and the dynamics of it can actually clearly be seen on the graphs they are providing, and it (the dynamics of traffic loss) is matching the reported actions of a Russian government towards YouTube pretty well I’d say. Does anyone have any objections to that idea? 🙂

What counts as "banned"? For example, Youtube is not officially banned, but all internet providers are forced to block/restrict it.

@AlekseyVoropaev well, a service needs to be inaccessible without VPN - just like Facebook or Instagram right now. YouTube in Russia…ok, the thing is: they had pretty much banned it on personal computers, as far as I know, but I’m quite positive that it still works well on mobile phones, even though it didn’t for a while. I honestly think that I probably should “resolve to percent” it eventually, and if by the year’s end it will still be accessible, but so slow that it will be impossible to work with (including on cellphones), the resolution will be, like, “Resolved to 90%”, I guess…Or to 95%

The AI has done a really great job with this question’s picture, in my opinion…