14 DAY TRIAL // The story was quite interesting but very similar with other YouTube events reported in the past. Recently, YouTube was entirely banned in Thailand after numerous offensive videos were published on the main page and recorded a huge number of views. Although the local authorities contacted the YouTube team and demanded them to remove the clips, the company's officials denied, sustaining the videos are not violating any of their policies. After the authorities heard the official statement of Google, they decided to block YouTube in the entire country until the search giant removes the clips.
Today, Google made a new step to remove the ban after they agreed to help Thai authorities block the videos insulting King Bhumibol Adulyadej. According to Google Watch, YouTube aims to enable the officials to block only certain clips displayed on the service while the rest of the videos are available to the entire country.
"While we will not take down videos that do not violate our policies, and will not assist in implementing censorship, we have offered to educate the Thai ministry about YouTube and how it works. It's up to the Thailand government to decide whether to block specific videos, but we would rather that than have them block the entire site, "said Julie Supan, head of global communications for YouTube, according to the same publication.
As I said before, this is not the first time when YouTube is banned for offensive videos published on its page. In the past, the Google product was entirely blocked in Turkey after numerous clips insulting the residents were uploaded on YouTube. The first time when YouTube was blocked in a country was when Daniela Cicarelli, Ronaldo's ex-wife, sued Google for publishing videos without authorization. A Brazilian court closed YouTube Brazil until the search giant removed all the clips showing the model.