China Blocks Youtube

During the Tibet protests in March 2008 foreign news reports posted videos of the protests on YouTube. In an effort to control what China's public saw of the incident the Chinese government blocked all access to the video sharing site YouTube.com until YouTube removed all content of the protests from its servers. The full story, " China blocks YouTube over Tibet protests," can be found on msnbc's website.

This is one example of how the internet can be the first source to disseminate information. In cases where the government decides to censor certain sensitive information, or in some instances conceal the information entirely from the public, the internet can sometimes be the only source of truth.

This YouTube video is one example of the foreign news reports on the incident:


Interestingly, while most videos on YouTube can be viewed freely, in order to watch this particular video the user is required to sign up for an account on YouTube in order for the site to confirm that the user is over the age of 18. Despite the fact that this is just an ordinary news clip the video has been labelled unsuitable for minors.