This is actually completely false.
Until very recently, both Youtube and telegram have been available censorship free. Almost every russian was able to access “non-state propaganda media outlets” in under ~10 seconds on their smartphones.
NYT times is bad source on russia. They routinely whitewash russian crimes. They often leverage russian opposition sources without any critical analysis.
YouTube and Telegram are not sources of authoritative or factual information either, if anything they are even less reliable. YouTube alone is probably filled with more hours of misinformation than all news media on the planet.
The fact you’re even suggesting them as some sort of alternative to get reliable info shows you don’t intend to have a real discussion.
You are either ignorant or you have an agenda (or perhaps you don’t want to consider that you were wrong).
You were able to access authoritative russian-langauge “non-state propaganda media outlets” on YT at least as far back as the early 2010s.
TV Rain , a generally well regarding Russian opposition channel opened their YT account on Apr 13, 2010, with the oldest listed video being with some of the first clips appearing in May 2010.
DW on Russian (DW на русском) also started their YT channel in 2010 with clips appearing in the same year.
Telegram did longer to get authoritative sources, but you can get BBC on it. And I am willing to be you good money that the BBC Russian service YT account appeared closer to 2010.
I am sorry but you are wrong and you don’t understand what you are talking about.
