Specific incidents where YouTube has been blocked include:
- Thailand blocked access in April 2007 over a video said to be insulting the Thai king.[237]
- Morocco blocked access in May 2007, possibly as a result of videos critical of Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara.[238] YouTube became accessible again on May 30, 2007, after Maroc Telecom unofficially announced that the denied access to the website was a mere "technical glitch".[239]
- Turkey blocked access between 2008 and 2010 after controversy over videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.[240][241][242] In November 2010, a video of the Turkish politician Deniz Baykal caused the site to be blocked again briefly, and the site was threatened with a new shutdown if it did not remove the video.[243] During the two and a half-year block of YouTube, the video-sharing website remained the eighth-most-accessed site in Turkey.[244][245] In 2014, Turkey blocked the access for the second time, after "a high-level intelligence leak."[246][247][248]
- Pakistan blocked access on February 23, 2008, because of "offensive material" towards the Islamic faith, including display of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad.[249] This led to a near global blackout of the YouTube site for around two hours, as the Pakistani block was inadvertently transferred to other countries. On February 26, 2008, the ban was lifted after the website had removed the objectionable content from its servers at the request of the government.[250][251] Many Pakistanis circumvented the three-day block by using virtual private network software.[252] In May 2010, following the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Pakistan again blocked access to YouTube, citing "growing sacrilegious content".[253] The ban was lifted on May 27, 2010, after the website removed the objectionable content from its servers at the request of the government. However, individual videos deemed offensive to Muslims posted on YouTube will continue to be blocked.[254][255] Pakistan again placed a ban on YouTube in September 2012, after the site refused to remove the film Innocence of Muslims. The ban was lifted in January 2016 after YouTube launched a Pakistan-specific version.[256]
- Libya blocked access on January 24, 2010, because of videos that featured demonstrations in the city of Benghazi by families of detainees who were killed in Abu Salim prison in 1996, and videos of family members of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at parties. The blocking was criticized by Human Rights Watch.[257] In November 2011, after the Libyan Civil War, YouTube was once again allowed in Libya.[258]
- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sudan blocked access in September 2012 following controversy over a 14-minute trailer for the film Innocence of Muslims which had been posted on the site.[259][260][261][262][263] A court in the southern Russian Republic of Chechnya ruled that Innocence of Muslims should be banned.[264] In Libya and Egypt, it was blamed for violent protests. YouTube stated: "This video—which is widely available on the Web—is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries."[265][266]
- Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, YouTube announced on March 1 the immediate removal of RT (and other Russian-government funded outlets) from its platform in Europe. The removal was soon expanded globally.[267] From late 2024, users across Russia started experiencing sharp declines in YouTube loading speeds.[268]
- Following controversial comment on show India's got latent, concerns were raised in the zero hour of parliament regarding regulation of content on YouTube, since it has enormous user base in India and such content would have adverse influence specially on children viewers.[269]