YouTube, the third-most visited website in the world (according to Alexa Internet), has been censored several times in some countries since its inception.
As of February 2011, countries with standing national bans on YouTube are China, Iran, Libya, and Turkmenistan.
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On May 10, 2008, Microsoft temporarily banned functional YouTube links from its Live Messenger Service (although the ban was lifted as of 21:30 BST). Microsoft never commented on the blocking. The sending of any functional link starting with either http:// or www. with the string "youtube.com" contained within it returned an error message saying "The following message could not be delivered to all recipients: (original message here)." Coincidentally, or not, Messenger TV, a new video service provided by Microsoft was scheduled for release the same week.[1]
Some U.S. colleges block YouTube access. Brigham Young University, a private university run by the LDS Church had blocked YouTube access in the past, citing bandwidth and inappropriate content concerns, but this policy was changed in June 2009.[2]
YouTube is age restricted through the Department of Education and Training (DET) network, it may only be accessed by students over the age of 18 who are using the TAFE network.
Many K-12 schools in the United States and Canada block access to YouTube due to sexual, violent, and unusual content, and due to bandwidth consumption. Some schools do allow it for educational purposes.
YouTube and other video streaming websites are also blocked from access in schools across the UK to avoid distraction from work and to reduce bandwidth. This only applies to students, as in some schools some teachers are allowed access to YouTube to show videos which are educational. This is done through the use of proxy censor systems through the council's Internet provision, which most schools receive through.
In most East Midlands schools, including RBEC, YouTube is blocked using filtering made available by the East Midlands Broadband Company. Some schools across the UK, however, allow access to YouTube for the students but they are only permitted to watch videos considered to be appropriate. They are not to log into their accounts or upload videos. Also, the WebSense filter doesn't block YouTube for anyone, therefore it is possible to watch anything at a school with WebSense, including the R and S rated movies.
YouTube has been blocked from access to reduce the likelihood of students clogging up the bandwidth. The block time is from 9am until 6pm daily.
Following the disputed February 2008 presidential elections, the Armenian Government temporarily blocked internet users from YouTube. The Armenian opposition had used the website to publicize video of police and military brutality carried out against anti-government protesters.
In March 2009, YouTube was blocked in Bangladesh after a recording of a meeting between the prime minister and army officers was posted revealing anger by the military on how the government was handling a mutiny by border guards in Dhaka.The block is lifted at present.[3]
YouTube is being sued by Brazilian model and MTV VJ Daniella Cicarelli, the ex-fiancée of footballer Ronaldo) on the grounds that the site makes available video footage made by a paparazzo in which she and her boyfriend are having sex on a Spanish beach. The lawsuit requires that YouTube be blocked in Brazil until all copies of the video are removed. On Saturday, January 6, 2007, a legal injunction ordered that filters be put in place to prevent users in Brazil from accessing the website.[4][5]
The effectiveness of the measure has been questioned, since the video is available not only on YouTube, but also on other sites as part of an Internet phenomenon. On Tuesday, January 9, 2007, the same court overturned their previous decision, ordering the filters removed, although the footage itself remained forbidden, but without technical support for its blockage.[6]
YouTube was blocked in the People's Republic of China, beginning on 15 October 2007,[7] but on 22 March 2008 became unblocked.[8] Reports suggested that YouTube was blocked again from 24 March 2009, although a Foreign Ministry spokesperson would not confirm whether YouTube had been blocked or not. Tibetan exiles suggest that the blockage could be related to a video published by the exiles on YouTube that portrayed Chinese soldiers beating men in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.[9]
In Germany, all VEVO video clips are blocked since its start in 2009, due to copyright issues. This is clearly visible at the most watched video clips at the statistics, Germany always being light green while the rest of Europe might be dark green
On April 1, 2008, Indonesian information minister, Muhammad Nuh, wrote to YouTube asking them to remove a controversial Dutch film, Fitna, made by Dutch right-wing politician, Geert Wilders. The Indonesian government allowed two days for the removal of the video, or YouTube would be blocked in Indonesia. On April 4, 2008, Muhammad Nuh asked all Internet service providers to block the access to YouTube.[10][11] On April 5, 2008, YouTube was blocked for testing by one ISP.[12] Finally, on April 8, YouTube, along with MySpace, Metacafe, RapidShare, Multiply, Liveleak, and Fitna's official site, were blocked in Indonesia.[13] YouTube's ban was lifted on April 10.[14] There may still be some blocking in May 2008 according to local inhabitants.
On December 3, 2006, Iran blocked YouTube, along with several other sites, after declaring them "immoral". The YouTube ban came after a video was posted online that appears to show an Iranian soap opera star having sex.[15] The block was later lifted and then reinstated after the 2009 Iranian presidential election.[16]
On 24 January 2010, Libya indefinitely blocked YouTube after it featured videos of demonstrations in the Libyan city of Benghazi by families of detainees who were killed in Abu Salim prison in 1996, as well as videos of family members of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi at parties. The ban was condemned by Human Rights Watch.[17]
On May 25, 2007, the state-owned Maroc Telecom blocked all access to YouTube.[18] There were no reasons given as to why YouTube was blocked, but speculations are that it might have something to do with some posted pro-separatist group Polisario clips (Polisario being the Western Sahara independence movement) or because of some videos criticizing King Mohammed VI. The government ban did not concern the other two private internet providers, Wana and Méditel. YouTube became accessible again on May 30, 2007, after Maroc Telecom unofficially announced that the denied access to the website was a mere "technical glitch".[19]
YouTube was blocked in Pakistan following a decision taken by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority on February 22, 2008 because of the number of "non-Islamic objectionable videos."[20] One report specifically names Fitna, a controversial Dutch film, as the basis for the block.[21] Pakistan, an Islamic republic, ordered its ISPs to block access to YouTube "for containing blasphemous web content/movies."[22] Blasphemy law in Pakistan calls for life imprisonment or death. Router misconfiguration by one Pakistani ISP effectively blocked YouTube access worldwide for several hours on February 24, 2008.[23]
This follows increasing unrest in Pakistan by Islamic extremists over the reprinting of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons which depict satirical Criticism of Islam.[22] However, it has been suggested by some Pakistani vigilante web sites and electoral process watchdog groups that the block was imposed largely to distract viewers from videos alleging vote-rigging by the ruling MQM party in the recently concluded general elections. Allegations of suppressing vote-rigging videos by the Musharraf administration are also being leveled by Pakistani bloggers, newspapers, media, and Pakistani anti-Musharraf opposition parties.
On February 26, 2008, the ban was lifted after the website had removed the objectionable content from its servers at the request of the government.[24]
On 20 May 2010, on Everybody Draw Mohammed Day Pakistan again blocked the website in a bid to contain "blasphemous" material.[25]
On May 31, 2010, the ban was lifted after the website had removed the objectionable content from its servers at the request of the government.
The video claiming responsibility for the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, which claimed 800,000 viewers in four days, was removed, along with all videos of Doku Umarov. Additionally, it turned out that over 300 videos from the Kavkaz Center were removed because of having "inappropriate content." Russia was blamed for having pressured YouTube to take such measures.[26]
On July 28, 2010, a court in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur has ordered a local ISP to block access to youtube.com, along with web.archive.org and several websites offering books for downloads, citing extremist materials as the reason. Later this decision was revoked.
In 2008, during the Russia-Georgia conflict, a video from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart making fun of the Georgian president and USA president had been continuously removed by YouTube.
Several clips of the recordings of closed sessions of the Government of Slovenia were published on YouTube in the beginning of December 2011. The publication happened during the Slovenian 2011 parliamentary election but was discovered in the following week.[27][28] On 8 December 2011, the Slovenian government demanded the removal of the recordings from YouTube. On 15 December, the Government Communication Office (UKOM) reported on Twitter that the recordings were removed, however two shorter appeared.[29]
The Sudanese authorities blocked YouTube on April 21, 2010, following the recent presidential elections, and also blocked YouTube's owner Google. The block was in response to a YouTube video showing National Electoral Commission workers in official uniforms and a child in the Hamashkoreib region filling out voting strips and putting them into ballot boxes, with one of them expressing relief that the voting period had been extended for them to finish their work. Sudan had previously blocked YouTube temporarily in 2008 for unknown reasons.[30]
In 2006, Thailand blocked access to YouTube for users with Thai IP addresses. Thai authorities identified 20 offensive videos and demanded that Google remove them before it would allow unblocking of all YouTube content.[31]
During the week of March 8, 2007, YouTube was blocked in Thailand.[32] Many bloggers believed the reason for the blocking was a posted video of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's speech on CNN. The government did not confirm or provide reasons for the ban. YouTube became accessible again on March 10, 2007.
On the night of April 3, 2007, YouTube was again blocked in Thailand.[33] The government cited a video on the site that it called "insulting" to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.[34][35] However, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology claimed that it would unblock YouTube in a few days, after websites containing references to this video are blocked instead of the entire website.[36] Communications Minister Sitthichai Pokai-udom said, "When they decide to withdraw the clip, we will withdraw the ban."[37] Shortly after this incident the internet technology blog Mashable was blocked from Thailand over the reporting of the YouTube clips in question.[38] YouTube was unblocked on August 30, 2007, after YouTube reportedly agreed to block videos deemed offensive by Thai authorities.[39]
On September 21, 2007, Thai authorities announced they were seeking a court order to block videos that had recently appeared on YouTube accusing Privy Council president Prem Tinsulanonda of attempting to manipulate the royal succession to make himself Thailand's king.[40]
YouTube has been blocked in Tunisia since at least November 2, 2007, with a forged HTTP 404 error message appearing instead.[41] The reasons for such an action are not immediately known, and no explanations have been given. YouTube is the second video site to display such messages. The Wikipedia entry for Tunisia in English is inaccessible from within the country since 2010. The section contains well referenced accusations against the Tunisian government which it describes as an authoritarian regime. By contrast the French Wikipedia entry is allowed. Attempts to edit in information which is critical of the regime are quickly taken out by pro-regime web-masters in a seemingly organised manner. On January 13, 2011, YouTube became unblocked in Tunisia due to a promise made by the president earlier that evening. This action was followed by several other changes made concerning freedom of expression.
Turkish courts have banned YouTube between March 2007 and October 2010 (the first ban taking place between March 6 and March 9 of 2007) and thus users in Turkey could not access the site.
Türk Telekom first blocked YouTube in compliance with decision 2007/384 issued by the Istanbul 1st Criminal Court of Peace (Sulh Ceza Mahkeme) on 6 March 2007. The court decision was based on videos insulting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in an escalation of what the Turkish media referred to as a "virtual war" of insults between Greek, Armenian and Turkish YouTube members.[31][42][43][44] YouTube was sued for "insulting Turkishness"[45] and access to the site was suspended pending the removal of the video. YouTube lawyers sent proof of the video's removal to the Istanbul public prosecutor and access was restored on March 9, 2007.[46] However, other videos similarly deemed insulting were repeatedly posted, and several staggered bans followed, issued by different courts:
The block in accordance with court decision 2008/468 of the Ankara 11th Criminal Court of Peace issued on April 24, 2008, which cited that YouTube had not acquired a certificate of authorisation in Turkey, was not implemented by Türk Telekom until May 5, 2008.
Although YouTube was officially banned in Turkey, the website was still accessible by modifying connection parameters to use alternative DNS servers, and it was the sixth most popular website in Turkey according to Alexa records. Responding to criticisms of the courts' bans, the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has famously stated "I do access the site. Go ahead and do the same." in November 2008.[48]
In June 2010, Turkey's president Abdullah Gül used his Twitter account to express disapproval of the country's blocking of YouTube, which also affects access from Turkey to many Google services. Gül said he had instructed officials to find legal ways of allowing access.[49]
Turkey lifted the ban on 30 October 2010,[50] but the ban was reinstated on 3 November 2010.[51]
As of 18 September 2011, YouTube is not banned in Turkey.
On December 25, 2009, YouTube was blocked in Turkmenistan by the only ISP Turkmentelecom. Other web-sites such as LiveJournal were blocked, too.[52]
The UAE's telecom regulatory authority blocked YouTube in August 2006, with the Etisalat ISP in the UAE citing "presence of adult content on the website which is clearly against the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the UAE".[53] Etisalat unblocked YouTube a month later.[54]
An unknown number of videos have been removed at the request of the British Government during 2011, including a video of right-wing politician Roger Hayes challenging Liverpool City Council in Birkenhead on 7th March 2011.[55] A recent video of The Wright Stuff was also flagged on YouTube for censorship by the government, claiming that it has infringed copyright. It involved a caller talking about the census and his involvement with the rapidly spreading lawful rebellion movement in Great Britain. He spoke of actions such as sending a no contract/return to sender message back to the government. There has also been a greater level of concern over the government continuing to censor YouTube videos which contain information on lawful rebellion, which operates via old and active laws, such as the Magna Carta originally penned in 1215.[56]
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