structural:scholar_edition, structural:summarization
Censorship and bans

YouTube has been censored, filtered, or banned for a variety of reasons, including:

Access to specific videos is sometimes prevented due to copyright and intellectual property protection laws (e.g. in Germany), violations of hate speech, and preventing access to videos judged inappropriate for youth, which is also done by YouTube with the YouTube Kids app and with " restricted mode ". Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to its bandwidth limitations and the site's potential for distraction.

As of 2018, public access to YouTube is blocked in many countries, including China, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan. In some countries, YouTube is blocked 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 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.

Reports emerged that since October 2019, comments posted with Chinese characters insulting the Chinese Communist Party (共匪 "communist bandit" or 五毛 " 50 Cent Party ", referring to state-sponsored commentators) were being automatically deleted within 15 seconds.

Specific incidents where YouTube has been blocked include: