Why Do Some Countries Block YouTube

The YouTube banning trend is getting popular. Every week we hear of some country that has decided to protect its oversensitive citizens from the horrors of video sharing by blocking YouTube. Since I have talked YouTube in two of my blogs, I get a feeling that I have to talk something about YouTube and censorship (if politics is too wide). And, I just want to express some personal experiences and thoughts. However, I guess none of my opinions can be correct just because in real life, I can never find a correct answer for a certain political issue.

Sometimes, I am really happy that I can enjoy watching YouTube again after I came to Canada. YouTube came into my life when I was in middle school in China. At that time, YouTube hadn’t been banned yet and I just enjoyed watching NBA videos on it every day. However, I watched it not because there were no other sites provide NBA videos. It just feels cool for a teenager to watch NBA in a foreign website. It really doesn’t mean much to me. So when YouTube was banned, without much sadness, I moved to another Chinese site which actually provides better NBA videos. But why does government ban YouTube? Two Comments I found on the Internet are quite typical answers.

“To control information, usually. It can be hard for a government to run a successful propaganda campaign if people can go to the web and find the truth on their own.”--- IMHO Brain

“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.” --- Stan Schroeder

It is believed by the public that countries which banned YouTube in the world are the countries have less democracy. However, it is not fair to conclude that citizens could find the truth on a banned website. Take me as an example, as a Chinese citizen, I was much clear than anybody else on the reason why they ban YouTube. As a matter of fact, in China, most of the people who know how to use Internet know the reason why the government bans it. And you know what; they have many ways to see what happened there in that banned site. Porn videos are not permitted, but every boy has some in their laptops. (Not every boy LoL) And believe me; it is much easier to visit YouTube than download a porn video. The fact is people are more curious about things they are not allowed to see. It actually reminds me what American government did for Wikileaks. In this information society, whenever there is a government, there is secret. We are all fed with information in a manner that they choose. In my point of view, any comment laughing at other countries’ information policy is like a Chinese saying: the pot calls the kettle black. Nevertheless, I wish some day in the future, Chinese government could be the first one which is brave enough to face any expression of opinion in front of their people.