Blocking
YouTube has been blocked in several countries since its inception, including Tunisia, Thailand (which has since been lifted) and Iran. Certain video pages were banned as of October 1, 2007 in Turkey, but this was lifted two days later. More recently on January 22, 2008 Turkey banned YouTube once again but this ban was lifted after three days. There is currently a ban on YouTube in Turkey since May 5, 2008. Certain pages are also banned in United Arab Emirates.
On February 23, 2008, Pakistan blocked YouTube due to "offensive material" towards the Islamic faith, including the display of pictures of the prophet Muhammad.[29] This action by the Pakistani authorities led to a near global blackout of the YouTube site for at least two hours.[30] Thousands of Pakistanis undermined the 3-day block using a VPN software called Hotspot Shield.[31] The YouTube ban was lifted on February 26, 2008 after the "offensive material" were removed from the site.[32]
YouTube has been subject to threats of censorship by various countries because of the content it hosts. It was blocked from Mainland China from the 18th October due to the censorship of the Taiwanese flag. URLs to YouTube were redirected to China's own search engine, Baidu. It was subsequently unblocked on the 31st of October.[33]
Schools in certain countries have begun to block access to YouTube due to students uploading videos of bullying behavior, school fights and racist behavior as well as increased bandwidth usage and other inappropriate content.
source:Wikipedia
