ST8

Hey everyone! Hope you're doing well. My new video is delayed (I'm sorry!) but coming soon - more on that later.

Sadly, I have some bad news to report. The Russian parliament, the Duma, has passed a law making it no longer legal for "international agents" - those deemed to receive funding from out of the country - from receiving money via advertising. Unfortunately, this has led to huge issues for several Russian YT channels, most importantly the channel Redaktsiya (Редакция).

Over the last several years, Aleksei Pivovarov and his team had provided countless hours of investigative journalism, news and deep-dive documentaries into a variety of topics. It is with great sadness that Pivovarov has been forced to disband his team, with them going on to found a new channel. Since they do not have the "international agent" label, they are free to earn money from advertising. Pivovarov himself has vowed to put out videos on his own to keep Redaktsiya going, but of course it will have to cut back drastically on its work.

I wish Redaktsiya, Pivovarov and his former team the best in their endeavors. Aleksei Pivovarov has been a huge inspiration for me and the way stories are told on this channel.

As for a political message regarding this - all I will say is to use Pivovarov's favourite quote - "Все всё понимают" - "everyone understands everything". I will leave it at that.

UPDATE ON LATEST VIDEO (from ST8): unfortunately, certain parts of the narrative are still unfolding and are taking a bit longer. I apologise for the delay. You will have a new video very soon.

Pivovarov's channel (in Russian): youtube.com/@redactsiya

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

ST8

Hey everyone, wish you all a Happy New Year!

This week, I was blessed with the milestone of being accepted into the Youtube Partner Program - thanks so much to all of you for making this possible!


And here's something weird - turns out another channel has ripped my entire video about the #BlueWhaleChallenge, added their own 30 second intro to it, and re-uploaded it. Alongside similar videos from other content creators. I thought I'd post about it because it is NOT OKAY.

That video took almost 3 months of work to put together. And it kind of feels bad to have someone just re-upload it in full without so much as asking, contributing nothing of substance to it, and not even crediting me as the original creator. I'm not perfect but I definitely try my best to list out the creators of my source material.

The funny thing is it's not even a monetisable video given its subject matter (aka none of the ads served on it will ever make money for the re-uploader since it is not a topic advertisers want to touch).

My original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqnJl...

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 4

ST8

I'd love to hear what you want me to tackle next!

Do you think I should avoid political topics in future videos? Such as discussion of things related to the war in Ukraine?

1 year ago | [YT] | 0

ST8

That last video was really hard to get through for me.

Thanks so much for watching. I'd love to hear what you think about Vladlen Tatarsky, Darya Trepova, and any of the other topics coming out of this case.

I know I can get the next video out by the end of the year, but I'm going to try to make it even sooner.

1 year ago | [YT] | 3

ST8

Friends, thanks so much for watching my documentaries, and for all your support and comments! I appreciate it!

Now, after the chaotic crunch time to finish my video, I'm going to take a few days off and hang out with my family.

Again, thank you!

1 year ago | [YT] | 9