The American video-sharing platform YouTube is the second-most popular website as of August 2019, according to Alexa Internet. According to the company's press page, YouTube has more than one billion users, and each day, those users watch more than one billion hours of video. Censorship of it has occurred and continues to occur to varying degrees in most countries throughout the world.
General
YouTube blocking occurs for a variety of reasons including: Preventing criticism of a ruler, government, government officials, religion, or religious leaders; Preventing videos promoting racism; Violations of national laws, including: Copyright and intellectual property protection laws; Violations of hate speech, ethics, or morality-based laws; National security legislation. Preventing access to videos judged to be inappropriate for youth; Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to bandwidth limitations and the site's potential for distraction.
In some countries YouTube is completely blocked, either through a long-term standing ban or for more limited periods of time such as during periods of unrest, the run-up to an election, or in response to upcoming political anniversaries. In other countries, access to the website as a whole remains open, but access to specific videos is blocked due to many reasons including orders from country jurisdiction. In both cases, a VPN is usually deployed to bypass geographical restrictions. In cases where the entire site is banned due to one particular video, YouTube will often agree to remove or limit access to that video in order to restore service.
As of September 2012, countries with standing national bans on YouTube include China, Iran, and Turkmenistan. Due to disputes between GEMA and YouTube over royalties, many videos featuring copyrighted songs were inaccessible in Germany. After an agreement was made between the companies in November 2016, these videos became accessible.
YouTube's Terms of Service prohibit the posting of videos which violate copyrights or depict pornography, promoting racism, illegal acts, gratuitous violence, or hate speech. User-posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating: "This video is no longer available because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service". Additionally, Google reserves the right to terminate any account for any reason, with or without notice.
YouTube offers an opt-in feature known as "Restricted Mode", which filters videos that might contain mature content.
Countries where access to YouTube is currently blocked
China
YouTube was first blocked in China for over five months from October 16, 2007 to March 22, 2008.
It was blocked again from March 24, 2009, although a Foreign Ministry spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny whether YouTube had been blocked. Since then, YouTube has been inaccessible from mainland China. However, YouTube can still be accessed from Hong Kong, Macau, the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, specific hotels, and by using a VPN. Since 2018, when the term "YouTube" is searched on Baidu, the following message is displayed: "According to local regulations and policies, some results cannot be shown."
Even though YouTube is blocked under the Great Firewall, many Chinese media outlets, including China Central Television (CCTV), have official YouTube accounts. Despite the ban, Alexa ranks YouTube as the 5th-most-visited website in China.
Eritrea
YouTube has been intermittently blocked in Eritrea since 2011 by some ISPs, although a spokesperson for Freedom House speculated this was due to bandwidth considerations.
Iran
On December 3, 2006, Iran temporarily blocked access to YouTube and several other sites, after declaring them as violators of social and moral codes of conduct. The YouTube block came after a video was posted online that appeared to show an Iranian soap opera star having sex. The block was later lifted and then reinstated after Iran's 2009 presidential election. In 2012, Iran reblocked access, along with access to Google, after the controversial film Innocence of Muslims trailer was released on YouTube. Some startups, television shows, celebrities, and reformist politicians such as Khatami use this website.
North Korea
YouTube was blocked in North Korea because of the country's laws regarding the Internet and its accessibility. It has been fully blocked since April 2016, and the North Korean government has warned that anyone who tries to access it is subject to punishment.