Censorship of video-sharing platform YouTube occurs to varying degrees in many countries.

General

YouTube blocking occurs for a variety of reasons, including: Preventing criticism of a ruler, government, government officials, religion, or religious leaders; Preventing videos promoting racism; Violations of national laws, including: Copyright and intellectual property protection laws; Violations of hate speech, ethics, or morality-based laws; National security legislation. Preventing access to videos judged to be inappropriate for youth; Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to bandwidth limitations and the site's potential for distraction.

In some countries YouTube is completely blocked, either through a long-standing ban or 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 other countries, access to the website as a whole remains open, but access to specific videos is blocked due to many reasons, including orders from country jurisdiction. In both cases, a VPN is usually deployed to bypass geographical restrictions. 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.

As of September 2012, countries with standing national bans on YouTube include China, Iran, and Turkmenistan. Due to disputes between GEMA and YouTube over royalties, many videos featuring copyrighted songs were inaccessible in Germany. After an agreement was made between the companies in November 2016, these videos became accessible.

YouTube's Terms of Service prohibit the posting of videos that violate copyrights or depict pornography, or those that promote racism, illegal acts, gratuitous violence, or hate speech. User-posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating: "This video is no longer available because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service". Additionally, Google reserves the right to terminate any account for any reason, even without notice.

YouTube offers an opt-in feature known as "Restricted Mode", which filters videos that might contain mature content.

Age-Verify experience in selected countries In anticipation of an upcoming revision of the European Union's Audiovisual Media Services Directive, YouTube announced an expansion of their age-verification process on September 22, 2020. If YouTube cannot automatically verify any given user's age, a valid ID or credit card will be requested.

On July 30, 2025, amid the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023 in the United Kingdom, Google announced that it would begin to enforce "age assurance" policies for selected users in the United States as a trial. Machine learning will be used to determine the age of the user (regardless of any account information indicating their age) and restrict access to certain content and features across all Google properties, including YouTube (including, in particular, disabling personalized advertising and enabling certain digital well-being limits), if they are assumed to be under 18. On YouTube, this will be based on factors such as searches and video history and the age of the account. The user must go through age verification via payment, scanned ID, or selfie to access all features if they are detected to be a minor. This faced severe backlash for unintentionally flagging users as minors, leading to restrictions from commenting, publishing public content that is set to private by default, monetizing, and having watch history without ID verification, which to bypass, they use Microsoft's Clippy profile picture in order to protest.

Following Australia's social media ban coming into effect on 10 December 2025, over 40 countries are considering passing YouTube bans for users under 16.

EU Copyright Article 17 (Formerly Article 13) Article 17 (formerly Article 13) of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is feared and criticized as censorship even by Big Tech companies and CEOs like Susan Wojcicki, mandatory for all countries of the European Union (except for the UK since Brexit) within two years if adopted.

In April 2019, Article 13 passed, mandating all online platforms, even YouTube, to implement the Upload Filter, which scans for copyrighted content and blocks it from being uploaded. This was to protect copyright holders, but critics say that it would censor freedom of speech and expression and that it would even censor fair use like memes or parodies too by accidental block fair use by automated filter. Following millions of protests, Article 17 has been unenforced.

Countries where access to YouTube is currently blocked

China

YouTube was first blocked in China for over five months from October 16, 2007 to March 22, 2008. It was blocked again from March 24, 2009, although a Foreign Ministry spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny whether YouTube had been blocked."YouTube blocked in China" , CNN, March 25, 2009 Since then, YouTube has been inaccessible from mainland China. However, YouTube can still be accessed from Hong Kong (via a local version), Macau (via a worldwide version), the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, specific hotels, and by using a VPN. Since 2018, when the term "YouTube" is searched on Baidu, the following message is displayed: "According to local regulations and policies, some results cannot be shown."

Even though YouTube is blocked under the Great Firewall, many Chinese media outlets, including China Central Television (CCTV), Xinhua News Agency and China Global Television Network (CGTN), have official YouTube accounts. Despite the ban, Alexa ranked YouTube as the 5th-most-visited website in China due to huge VPNs and official permits.

Eritrea

YouTube has been intermittently blocked in Eritrea since 2011 by some ISPs, although a spokesperson for Freedom House speculated this was due to bandwidth considerations.

Iran

On December 3, 2006, Iran temporarily blocked access to YouTube and several other sites, after declaring them as violators of social and moral codes of conduct. The YouTube block came after a video was posted online that appeared to show an Iranian soap opera star having sex. The block was later lifted and then reinstated after Iran's 2009 presidential election. In 2012, Iran reblocked access, along with access to Google, after the controversial film Innocence of Muslims trailer was released on YouTube. Some startups, television shows, celebrities, and reformist politicians such as Khatami use this website.

North Korea

YouTube is blocked in North Korea because of the country's laws regarding the Internet and its accessibility. The North Korean government has warned that anyone who tries to access it is subject to punishment because VPNs are all outlawed.

Russia

On February 12, 2026, Roskomnadzor imposed a full nationwide block on the platform, making YouTube inaccessible in Russia without the use of a VPN. The decision to block YouTube marked the culmination of a years-long deterioration in relations between the platform and the Russian state following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Since 2022 In March 2022, YouTube started showing its users ads with calls to disable Russian railroad communications. As a result, Roskomnadzor contacted Google and demanded the company to stop the threats against Russia. In addition, YouTube imposed a global ban on state-funded Russian media and propaganda channels, including RT and Sputnik. In response to mounting restrictions and international sanctions, Google suspended all monetization and subscription services in Russia including YouTube Premium and YouTube Music.

Between 2023 and 2025, Russian courts imposed increasingly large fines on Google, eventually reaching a record high of US$20 decillion in October 2024. Russian authorities accused the company of refusing to restore pro-Kremlin accounts and of spreading what they described as “false information” about the war in Ukraine.

In mid-2024, users in Russia started experiencing a significant slowdown in video loading speeds from 40% to 70%. Alexander Khinshtein, head of the State Duma's Committee on Information Policy, announced on Telegram that the "degradation" of YouTube speeds is planned and on purpose, he also encouraged people to comply with Russian policy on platform. But later he switched to blame the slowdown on Google's failure to invest in Russian infrastructure, such as its local cache servers.

From August 1, 2024, YouTube mobile platforms, which were initially not affected by speed drop, are also unusable due to informal blockade, but with specific browsers (i.e. domestic-made Yandex browser), high quality videos might still be accessible in Russia. On August 8, media interviewed many of the country's users, said YouTube can not function properly without a VPN. Google also shut off AdSense to all Russian citizens a week later.

Before 2022 The video claiming responsibility for the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, which quickly gained 800,000 views in four days, was removed, along with all videos of Dokka Umarov. Additionally, it turned out that over 300 videos from the Kavkaz Center were removed for having "inappropriate content." Russia was claimed to have pressured YouTube to take such measures.

On July 28, 2010, a court in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur ordered a local ISP to block access to YouTube.com, web.archive.org, and several other websites offering books for downloads, citing extremist materials as the reason. The order was not enforced and was later reversed.

On September 4, 2017, Roskomnadzor announced their intention to delete a video released by a popular YouTube channel Nemagia in which bloggers Alexey Pskovitin and Mikhail Pecherskiy described unscrupulous business strategies by Tinkoff Bank.

In February 2019, as a result of a complaint received by Roskomnadzor, YouTube has demanded that the Ukrainian Centre for Journalist Investigations remove a video about Emir-Usein Kuku, a Crimean Tatar 'human rights defender' who has been arrested by Russian authorities in 2016.

In September 2021, YouTube blocked two German-language channels run by a Russian state-backed media company RT stating they spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. In return, Roskomnadzor threatened to block the service in the country or fine Google unless the restrictions are lifted.

Turkmenistan On December 25, 2009, for security reasons as for firewall style, YouTube was blocked in Turkmenistan by the only ISP in the country, Turkmentelecom. Other websites, such as LiveJournal were also blocked. As of 2024, YouTube remains blocked in the country, but citizens attempt to access it temporarily using VPNs until they are blocked as well.

Countries where access to YouTube is currently restricted

Australia On 10 December 2025, YouTube along with Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and Reddit are banned for under 16s and anyone who wants to access or create accounts must be verified by ID or Facial scan. Australia became the first country in the world to implement such a policy.

Brazil The law came into effect on 17 March 2026, resulting in Brazil becoming the second country overall, and the first non-English-speaking and Latin American country to ban social media and all online platforms and social networking services, which includes various live-streaming and social media platforms such as VK, Telegram, Bilibili, among others, for individuals under 16 without parental consent, and forces them to verify their age through ID or facial scans.

Indonesia