No YouTube for You!

Katherine Mangu-Ward | May 30, 2007

YouTube has been banned for an odd assemblage of reasons, in an odd list of countries. Some highlights:

Morocco - Morocco has had YouTube banned because of videos that mock the Moroccan king as well as some pro-Western Sahara clips - until today. For the first time in two weeks, Moroccans can access YouTube again.

Brazil - Brazil, like Turkey, has had a nationwide YouTube ban due to a court order. The offending clip this time was Daniela Cicarelli’s sex stunt on the beach (how you can expect to have sex on the beach and not have it end up on YouTube is beyond us), and this Brazilian model insisted that the clip should either be fully removed (and users stopped from reposting it) or that YouTube should be banned altogether. YouTube was banned for a while, but the ban was removed relatively quickly.

China and India - Finally, China and India currently have no active ban on YouTube, but both states have on occasions threatened to block the video sharing website; India because of a video clip mocking Gandhi, and China because of their general policy of banning, well, all kinds of stuff.

See the complete list here.

Comments

Cesar|5.30.07 @ 5:03PM|#

Hey, whey the hell is North Korea green?

I'm pretty sure the entire internet (just not youtube) is banned there.

thoreau|5.30.07 @ 5:13PM|#

In light of that video of college kids singing some Backstreet Boys song, I'm kind of surprised (and disappointed!) that the Chinese haven't permanently banned all video sharing sites.

|5.30.07 @ 5:14PM|#

I thought the same thing. I read that the internet isn't even allowed in Korea.

Cesar|5.30.07 @ 5:17PM|#

IF anyone wants a good laugh though, you can visit the official Democratic Peoples Republic of North Korea homepage (the servers are located in Japan).

http://www.korea-dpr.com/

|5.30.07 @ 5:25PM|#

OK, so YouTube is back in Brazil. That's good. Now is the offending video back up? Cause I'd like to see it. For Liberty reasons, y'know.

|5.30.07 @ 5:29PM|#

I'm re-teaching myself piano through youtube. In about 2 days, I've learned more about music from hobbists than what a closeted classicly-trained organist taught me in 5 years.
What a great fucking tool. God bless the internet.

|5.30.07 @ 5:30PM|#

The thing is, most of NK has no electricity. So they are simply allowing you to deceive yourselves into thinking it's allowed there.

It's a room where you can smell the food, but you can't touch the silverware.

|5.30.07 @ 5:30PM|#

What's the country in orange on the southeast coast of Australia? I didn't know Melbourne had seceded!

|5.30.07 @ 5:32PM|#

Also, I'm interested in why the United Arab Emirates is in the red -- I thought they were trying to be cosmopolitan and stuff.

|5.30.07 @ 5:36PM|#

"...how you can expect to have sex on the beach and not have it end up on YouTube is beyond us."

Technically it wasn't on the beach; it was in the ocean. ...but I guess you could say it was at the beach.

...not that I would know--somebody must have told me about it.

|5.30.07 @ 5:40PM|#

crimethink:

"Victoria, Australia (in schools) - Australia is also included here (actually, only one of its states, Victoria) because YouTube was banned in schools there. It's not really a full ban, but it's not negligible either, considering some 1600 schools were affected."

From TFA.

Juan Arteaga|5.30.07 @ 5:42PM|#

Did Brazil really ban the entire website because you could see a grainy video of a celebrity's ass? I have seen pictures in magazines where Brazilian celebrities, unintentionally, end up showing all parts of their anatomy without any magazine or newspaper getting closed. I remembers some years ago where Ronaldo's (former Real Madrid player and currently part of AC Milan's retirement football community plus Kaka) girlfriend showed her vagina during carnaval. I remember it very clearly because I was little, and that was the second very explicit vagina I had seen. The first one belongs to Sharon Stone of course.

The thing is, I found it very weird that they made such a fuss over it this time. Maybe that girl had better connections than Ronaldo's girl.

|5.30.07 @ 5:43PM|#

crimethink,

I think thats the floating country ABOVE Australia, but I could be wrong.

|5.30.07 @ 5:49PM|#

Man, it seems like everyone's going ballistic on youtube right now. Videos are getting removed right and left for copyright reasons. (Hell, one of my favorites got removed within the past two days.)

Question: Can the owners of the copyright sue you for looking at a video on youtube?

|5.30.07 @ 7:11PM|#

Interesting that despite broad cultural and religious taboos in many societies, alot of banning is related to insulting some icon of the state (Gandhi, the King of Morocco).

|5.30.07 @ 7:18PM|#

I'd rather see a video of Indira Ghandi pole dancing while her son Sanjay collects the money for the lap dances.

|5.30.07 @ 8:28PM|#

I noticed that North Korea doesn't shy away from the American Imperialist Adobe Acrobat files

|5.30.07 @ 9:18PM|#

So what if they ban youtube? Wouldn't you guys ban me for this youtube? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkZSf6rlhZw

highnumber|5.30.07 @ 9:22PM|#

Ban? No.

Anyway, let's get back to that Ernst Roehm talk we were having, H&Rers.
Wasn't he dreamy?

|5.30.07 @ 10:21PM|#

In about 2 days, I've learned more about music from hobbists

Just think how much more you'd learn from Lockeans!

|5.30.07 @ 10:49PM|#

crimethink,

The UAE is a weird place. My guess is that it has to do with criticizing the leaders more than anything else. They didn't used to have a ban, then it showed up.

However, for anyone with a VPN connection, it's A-OK. It's really quite easy to get to.

|5.31.07 @ 2:32AM|#

Just looked at the comments section of the first link in the story. UAE only blocks the 18+ content now.

Interesting. Still, all is available via VPN connection.

|5.31.07 @ 12:42PM|#

crimethink:

In case your interested federalism is alive, if not too well, in Australia.

The State of Victoria is possibly one of the most intense nanny-states anywhere. It was the first place in the world with a law requiring seat-belt use.

They are very proud of that.

They also banned swords.

|5.31.07 @ 12:43PM|#

I do know the difference between "your" and "you're". Me just dumb today.

Tyler Farrer|5.31.07 @ 4:04PM|#

Melbourne banned You tube in its schools. Hardly a government crackdown on the public.