Navalny's video about 'Putin's palace' breaks Russian-language YouTube record and inspires tiktokers

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's video "Palace for Putin" has received 57 million views on YouTube. This is despite the fact that the population of Russia, according to the latest data, is 146 million. It is noteworthy that so many people have watched it, the newspaper said. with the BBC.

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This is a record for Navalny's video. Previously, the championship was held by the film "He's not Dimon", released in 2016. It has collected 38 million views. That video told about the property of Dmitry Medvedev, who was then prime minister.

The investigation into "Putin's palace" was published on Tuesday, January 19. The two-hour film tells about a luxurious palace on the Black Sea coast near Gelendzhik. According to Navalny, this building belongs to Russian President Vladimir Putin and is funded by people from his circle.

On the day of its release, the investigation became the most watched video not only among Russian-language videos, but in all segments of YouTube.

After the release of the investigation in the Kremlin, he was called "unfounded statements, nonsense and compilation."

On January 22, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin considered Navalny's film a "lie."

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“No explanation is needed here,” he said. “Literally a few days ago, when this material appeared, we said that this was not true, that some insinuations that the president was related to some objects in Gelendzhik were not true. It's just a lie. Putin has nothing to do with this. All the compilation materials contained there are good quality “cranberries”, which cause a large number of views.”

What is a palace

The official building area is 17 691 square meters. This size is not comparable to the mansions of Russian stars. The president also owns a guest house, a personal underground hockey stadium, several helipads, as well as an unfinished amphitheater and a personal gas station.

In addition, the entire territory of the property is fenced off with a huge fence, through which hardly anyone will be able to get through.

Also, the president has his own personal tunnel, through which he can get to the beach or take refuge in it in case of danger. And in the rock there is a so-called tasting window, behind which there is a room. It offers the best sea view, so you can sit in front of the window, drink wine and enjoy the picturesque views.

"Navalny and the film work independently"

Political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky called the huge number of views of Navalny's film "an amazing phenomenon" and "communication explosion."

“We cannot say how many of the millions who watched are ready to take to the streets in support of Navalny,” he said. “We know that since the end of last year, Navalny has taken first place among students in the line-up of politicians, pushing Putin to second. As far as I understand, the authorities have this data, but they are not public.”

The siloviki, according to Pavlovsky, did not calculate their strength.

“They took it upon themselves to solve the problem, and they didn't solve it. And they didn’t decide in such a way that a risk has arisen that they cannot control,” the expert believes. “They took the lever, pushing aside those in the political bloc who said that the most correct thing in this situation was to ignore Navalny’s return. Now the security forces are seizing Navalny’s employees, but they are not managing the process of mass popularity.”

“Navalny and the film work independently. They are mobilizing the opposition, and, apparently, the youth part of it. The result is a paradoxical situation: the blow to Putin is very strong, but it gives him back the opportunity to act independently again,” Pavlovsky explained.

“Why is the film about Putin’s real estate so wildly popular? Firstly, this is the packaging. In principle, if tomorrow Navalny makes an investigation about McDonald’s, it will take off just as much, even more than the investigation into Putin and “Putin’s palace,” the deputy general director of Transparency International - R wrote in a column in VTimes.

“We see that Navalny’s scale is growing: first, these are State Duma deputies, then the prosecutor general, the prime minister, and so on. Now Putin. Navalny’s media promotion channel (Twitter, YouTube, social networks) is well exploited,” the expert assesses.

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“This video broke the Russian-language YouTube record for the number of views in the first 48 hours after publication,” said a large international media network for working with influencers.

“This is the fastest-growing video in the last few years, even against the backdrop of the hype around pop stars Timati and Morgenstern,” noted a top manager of one of the largest advertising groups. SMM director of the Blacklight agency Anton Angel told the publication that “such a number of views in a few days is a fantastic figure for non-entertaining videos.”

Why video is the first in popularity

“As I understand it, Navalny's video about Putin's palace has become the most popular non-entertainment video in Russian on YouTube in history today. Now the video has more than 42 million views (data for January 21). Why do I think that "Palace" has overtaken everyone, because there is no official YouTube data about it?

In public, I did not find the top of the most popular videos in Russian YouTube for all years or at least for 2020, there are only dynamic tops of music videos across Russia. There is, of course, the top 500 global YouTube, where there is a lot of "Masha and the Bear" from Russia. But just to enter this top, you need to collect at least 0,5 billion views.

Finally, there are much more useful in this situation tops of the most popular videos in Russia separately for 2018, 2019, 2020, which were published by the local Google office. From these tops it is clear that in 2018 the most popular non-entertaining video - that is, not music, not a cartoon, not a stand-up, not a show - was Dudya’s interview with Ivleeva (33,5 million views), in 2019 - his Beslan (22,5 .2020 million), in 22,1 - his own interview with Shcherbakov (XNUMX million views). To be sure, I also looked at the table of popular videos collected by VTimes.

So, I think, "Palace" is now the leader in Russia among non-entertainment videos. "

Why TikTok became a protest social network

After the arrest of Alexei Navalny, the Russian segment of TikTok rapidly became politicized. Schoolchildren are agitating to go to a rally in defense of the politician and against corruption - their videos with protest hashtags are gaining tens of millions of views, writes with the BBC.

“Two years ago there was no politics at TikTok at all,” said the author of the telegram channel Slava Varfolomeev. “A year ago, a video on a political topic was something out of the ordinary.”

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Gradually, politics in the social network, popular among teenagers, became more and more, Slava recalls. Thus, Nikolai Bondarenko, a communist deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma, gained 386 thousand subscribers by posting videos on TikTok with strikes at the plant and emotional speeches in parliament.

But all this cannot be compared with the large-scale politicization of the social network in the last week - a wave of interest in politics was caused by Navalny’s return to the country, his arrest and the investigation into the presidential palace in Gelendzhik.

“I go to TikTok, and every third video I have is about “Putin’s palace,” Navalny’s detention and a possible rally on January 23,” he recalls.

“We cannot say that protest sentiments have only appeared now,” says Lyubava Zaitseva, head of influencer marketing at the Picture advertising agency. — There were always jokes about Putin, about Navalny, about lawlessness. Every time there was a rally, when Navalny was poisoned, when his investigations came out, videos appeared about it.”

Lyubava herself devoted her TikTok to socio-political topics, and she managed to gain 25 thousand video views on this topic.

“But now everyone has simply picked it up: even those who have never been seen in a political position have now expressed it,” she emphasized.

Who uses TikTok

TikTok has a reputation as a social network for children and teenagers, but this is a false stereotype. According to TikTok's October report, children and young people under 24 together make up 32% of users in Russia. A quarter of TikTokers are between 25 and 34 years old. And 20% are even older: 35-44 years old. In total, there are 25 million users in Russia who log in at least once a month.

Now every user has half of their feed dedicated to protest - no matter what their interests are or what videos they have watched before, Lyubava Zaitseva is sure.

Indeed, the hashtag #23January has 70 million views, and another 29 million for the similar hashtag #23January2021. But the hashtag #Putin's Palace is less popular - it was viewed 21 million times.

It's all about the TikTok recommendation system, which no other social network has.

“You only need to spend three hours on TikTok and it understands what content you like and what it can recommend to you. And there are so many videos about Navalny that recommendations no longer filter this content so well: now even people who support Putin will be shown videos about Navalny,” Zaitseva explained.

She came to this conclusion when she looked at the comments on her most popular video: about Putin's palace, which was investigated by Navalny on January 20.

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“The comments are absolutely mixed. Some children, some people write, “Actually, we are for Putin,” someone writes, “How do you know what’s inside?” It is thanks to TikTok that the younger generation will find out who Navalny is,” says Zaitseva.

What Tiktokers say about politics

The bulk of the new videos about Navalny and the protests are divided into several types.

One of them is this: schoolchildren and students take a portrait of Putin in the classroom from the wall or replace it with a portrait of Navalny.

The schoolgirl, who removed a portrait of Putin from the wall and gained 3,7 million views, wrote on her Instagram that she was summoned to the principal. And the next day I already posted a video from the police station. The girl explained that the school had complained to the police about her, but the department itself responded adequately—there were no complaints against the girl.

In some videos, tiktokers put protest music on their videos.

Wrong tips from TikTokers

Many videos are dedicated to preparing for rallies: how to dress and what to take with you.

This list is made by people who, apparently, have not been to the rallies before. They differ from the advice that volunteers and human rights defenders write before each uncoordinated rally.

For example, one after another, Tiktokers are advised to take milk with them to wash their eyes from tear gas. But tear gas has not been used to crack down on rallies in Russia in recent years, even if otherwise the police were very tough. Perhaps young people learned about milk from the experience of Belarusians: at the protests in Belarus, which have been taking place regularly since the summer of 2020, the police often used tear gas.

Another mistaken advice from tiktokers that you shouldn't take your passport with you to the rally. This advice is refuted in the same TikTok.

“Friends, if you don’t have a passport, you may be detained for two days to establish your identity,” explains a political science student from the Higher School of Economics in his video. And he reminds that the usual period of administrative detention is three hours.

Another myth that Tiktokers have picked up in recent days is that allegedly Vladimir Putin allowed people to shoot at the rally. Someone warns about this in their videos and persuades the audience not to go so as not to die.

Who is against

Some tiktokers do not understand what happened and simply express amazement that their entire feed has been drowned in protest videos. So in recent days, a popular video format has emerged: people take pictures of their amazed faces at the sight of Putin and Navalny on their TikTok.

There are those who warn against rallies. Users put their videos on the same “protest” sound, for example, with the voice of Yulia Navalnaya, and then, watching everything filmed with this sound, it will be possible to find their video with an alternative point of view.

“Dear little children who want to take part in the rally. Have pity on yourself and your loved ones,” says the user, who is confident that they will “simply be ripped off,” and then the teenagers will have problems with the security forces: “Let adults who understand at least something about politics go to the rallies.”

“I’m from Donbass and have already seen war and blood,” says the user: she and her baby look sadly into the camera. - I'm not for anyone! I'm against! Against war and murder." Her account is dedicated to motherhood, and previously there was no politics in it.

Some commentators simply do not understand what the rally is about and why everyone is afraid of Navalny. “Well, because Navalny is from Germany, and before there was a war, so everyone is afraid,” users who are clearly far from the topic explain to them in the comments.

Others who disagree with the general oppositional mood do not frighten the audience, but laugh: they shoot a video about how the whole TikTok is now raging, and on January 23, five people will go to protests.

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Political scientist Tatyana Stanovaya points out that the authorities do not have a common opinion on what to do with social networks and “objectionable” content on them. Laws allowing the closure of social networks have been adopted, but do not work in practice. “On the one hand, the ground begins to burn under your feet, and on the other, there is no command for a mass extinguishing,” she describes the position of officials when they see such a protest surge on TikTok.

“The fight against these TikToks, videos and even the protests themselves has the goal in itself of showing zeal in the eyes of Putin, and not of containing the protest itself. They don’t care what the efficiency will be, but we will see super diligence at high costs,” explains Stanovaya.

In her opinion, this could end badly for the protesters: "According to the style of what the authorities are doing today, I get the impression that the mood is very tough."

Roskomnadzor against

Roskomnadzor on January 20 demanded that TikTok remove information "involving minors in illegal actions."

TikTok promised to cooperate with Russian authorities back in 2019, after Roskomnadzor announced that it was going to look for child pornography and other prohibited content on the social network.

So far, no account blocking is known, but in the past, TikTok has blocked content: for example, beauty blogger Ferozu Aziz, who, under the guise of curling eyelash instructions, talked about the persecution of Uighur Muslims in China.

Olga Yaroslavskaya, Ombudsman for the Rights of the Child in Moscow, also spoke about the use of children for political purposes, and it was through social networks.

“Manipulators hide behind bot pages on social networks; they know the consequences. But children usually don’t know,” she wrote on her Facebook. “They also don’t know the technologies of manipulation themselves, they don’t understand how masterfully political strategists use their age psychology, they don’t see what emotional points they press so that they want to destroy and deny everything. But today they press on all social networks, where young people actually live, all these technologies are available.”

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U.S. Congress calls for sanctions for Navalny's poisoning

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