YouTube

YouTube is the most visited online video-sharing website in the world. It was blocked on many countries due of many reasons. It is currently blocked in China, Iran, Sudan, South Sudan, Turkmenistan, Tajikstan, Syria, Eritea and North Korea.

Countries where access to YouTube had been blocked before

Afganistan

YouTube was blocked in Afganistan on September 12, 2012 due of the hosting of the trailer to the controversial film about Muhammad, Innocence of Muslims, which the authorities considered to be blasphemous. YouTube was unblocked on Afganistan on December 1, 2012.

Armenia

Following the disputed February 2008 presidential elections, the Armenian government blocked Internet users' access to YouTube only for a month. Armenians had used YouTube at time of the blocking to publicize video of alleged police brutality against anti-government protesters.

Bangladesh

In March 2009, YouTube was blocked in Bangladesh after a recording of an alleged 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 for YouTube was lifted on March 21, 2009.

YouTube was blocked once again on September 17, 2012, due of the controversies regarding the promotional videos for Innocence of Muslims. On June 5, 2013, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission lifted the ban almost after a year.

Brazil

YouTube was sued by Brazilian model and MTV Brasil VJ Daniela Cicarelli, which is the ex-fiancee of the Brazilian footballer Ronaldo) and her boyfriend in January 2007, due of the fact that the website hosted a video recorded paparazzi in which she and her boyfriend were having sexual intercourse on a Spanish beach, although the video did not contain explicit content, but the lawsuit asked that YouTube to 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 YouTube.

The effectiveness of the measure was questioned, since the video was available not only on YouTube, but also on other sites as part of an Internet phenomenon. On January 9, 2007, the same court overturned its previous decision, allowing the filters to be removed. The video footage itself remained banned and was to be removed from YouTube and other sites.

In June 2007, a judge ordered Cicarelli and her boyfriend to pay all court and lawyer costs, as well as R$10,000 (roughly US$3,203) to the three defendants, YouTube, Globo, and iG, citing a lack of good faith in pushing the privacy case when their actions took place in public.

Finland

Most of the music videos on YouTube were blocked on November 30, 2017 by by Finnish nonprofit performance rights organization Teosto in Finland. According to them, Google blocked the videos because they did not have an agreement to show music videos in Finland. According to Teosto, they and Google have made a temporary agreement to show the videos in the morning of November 30, 2017. The music videos started to return to YouTube and became unblocked in Finland later that day.

Germany

Most of the YouTube videos (including music videos) were blocked by Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (Society for Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights – GEMA), a performance rights organization in Germany, from 2009 until 2016. It was apart of the YouTube and GEMA dispute.

According to a German court in Hamburg, Google's subsidiary YouTube can be held liable for damages when it hosts copyrighted videos without the copyright holder's permission. As a result, music videos for major label artists on YouTube, as well as many videos containing background music, have been unavailable in Germany since the end of March 2009 after the previous agreement had expired and negotiations for a new license agreement were stopped. On October 31, 2016, YouTube and GEMA reached an agreement over royalties, ending a seven-year-long battle of blocking music videos in Germany. Currently, the music videos are unblocked in Germany.

On November 23, 2016, just a month after GEMA unblocked videos on YouTube in Germany, the German Kommission für Zulassung und Aufsicht (Commission for Authorization and Supervision), which is formed by representatives of German public broadcast stations, required PietSmiet & Co., a German let's-player operating his own YouTube channel to get a German broadcast license by April 30, 2017, or else be regarded as an illegal pirate radio broadcaster for livestreaming, even when no radio spectrum use is included. Some YouTubers, even non profit, might fail at the expensive fee for applying a license. On April 30, 2017, the livestreaming channel PietSmietTV went offline. The channel PietSmiet remained online due not providing 24/7 hours of streaming. The channel was mentioned in a requirement of a license.

In 2019, Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is feared and criticized as censorship, mandatory for all countries of the European Union within two years if adopted.