YouTube is a video sharing website famous around the world for many purposes from personal enjoyment through corporate entertainment material to political propaganda. YouTube and the format in which it approaches online content has shaped internet culture; we can say that the notion of a video sharing website became known through this particular example. Today, YouTube has an almost worldwide presence and thus has an impact at large on the lives of people who use the website. Some leaders of countries do not prefer this, so they enforce blocks or restrictions on the website and its apps. With the growing popularity of YouTube, media companies have started restricting certain content to selected countries only while advertisers rejoice on this new medium. We are going to elaborate on this and also present a solution to the problem of restricted access: Virtual Private Networks (VPN).
YouTube is currently blocked in the following countries: China, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan. If you are more keen on geology, religious history or maps, you might notice that the majority of participants on this list follow an Islamic religion. Oddly enough, the sole reason YouTube is entirely blocked in them (except Iran and Turkey which have political reasons as well) is because of the presence of one film, the Innocence of Muslims. A lot of Islamic groups consider it extremely offensive, and thus those in charge proceeded to cease any interaction with YouTube as long as the movie is uploaded there in some form or another, and perhaps beyond that. For China and North Korea, the legal system (that is the result of the political and cultural motivations of these countries) is what prevents the website from being viewed.
In the case of Germany, there is selective filtering present. Laws there condemn their own definition of copyright infringement, and thus videos that contain audio material which is not officially there (that is not approved by the owner of the audio) is automatically removed or banned.
To talk about VPN, it is fitting to also mention another solution: smart DNS (smart Domain Name System). Both work according to the same concept, but are good for different uses. VPN is best at providing general access: it allows you to connect to countries’ online domains, unblocking them entirely. Smart DNS is selective in this matter: you can only view the websites the company supports, which are usually entertainment and streaming ones.
VPN is a safe service: your data traffic is protected by encryptions, meaning that wrongdoers will have next to no chance to detect you if you use the right kind of protection. We advise you utilize OpenVPN and L2TP and to stay away from PPTP. VPN’s tight security features keep your private data out of the hands of YouTube and its advertisers, ensuring you don’t get stalked around the internet just to be bombarded with advertisements.
Smart DNS on the other hand has no such inherent form of safety, nor anything of similar value. The only area of service where it shines is speed. Smart DNS is as fast as your regular internet connection, while VPN suffers the disadvantage of encryptions: speed loss. In our opinion, if you want to connect to streaming websites and those only, go for smart DNS. In every other case, VPN is just far better.
We would also like to bring attention to some companies that are good for unblocking YouTube. These are VyprVPN that combines a VPN solution with smart DNS, ibVPN for its rich choice in pricing options and good support for YouTube, and HideMyAss that lets you connect to YouTube and other websites using an IP address from a selection of 180+ countries.
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