Notes

Lu:
All YouTube users can upload videos up to 15 minutes each in duration. Users who have a good track record of complying with the site's Community Guidelines may be offered the ability to upload videos up to 12 hours in length, as well as live streams, which requires verifying the account, normally through a mobile phone. When YouTube was launched in 2005, it was possible to upload longer videos, but a ten-minute limit was introduced in March 2006 after YouTube found that the majority of videos exceeding this length were unauthorized uploads of television shows and films. The 10-minute limit was increased to 15 minutes in July 2010.
From 2008 to 2017, users could add "annotations" to their videos—such as pop-up text messages and hyperlinks. These functions were notably used as the basis for interactive videos, which used hyperlinks to other videos to achieve branching elements Annotations were removed entirely from all videos on January 15, 2019. YouTube had introduced standardized widgets intended to replace annotations in a cross-platform manner, including "end screens" (a customizable array of thumbnails for specified videos displayed near the end of the video) and "cards", but they are not backwards compatible with existing annotations, while the removal of annotations will also break all interactive experiences which depended on them
In February 2009, YouTube announced a test service, allowing some partners to offer video downloads for free or for a fee paid through Google Checkout.[137] In June 2012, Google sent cease and desist letters threatening legal action against several websites offering online download and conversion of YouTube videos.[138] In response, Zamzar removed the ability to download YouTube videos from its site.[139]
Users retain copyright of their own work, but have the option to grant certain usage rights under any public copyright license they choose. Since July 2012, it has been possible to select a Creative Commons license as the default, allowing other users to reuse and remix the material.[
At the time of uploading a video, YouTube users are shown a message asking them not to violate copyright laws. YouTube does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a DMCA takedown notice pursuant to the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act. Any successful complaint about copyright infringement results in a YouTube copyright strike.
As of 2018, China and North Korea permanently block accessing YouTube, while Iran blocks YouTube on only one internet service provider. YouTube was blocked in Uzbekistan in October 2018 for unknown reasons.[445] Access to Facebook had been blocked a month earlier. People in the country rely on virtual private network software to circumvent the blockage. On January 15, it was reported that the blockage had been repealed, but it lasted only for 6–7 hours.[446]
Governments block YouTube for a variety of reasons, including:[447]
• Limiting public access and exposure to content that may ignite social or political unrest.
• Preventing criticism of a ruler (e.g. in North Korea), government (e.g. in China) or its actions (e.g. in Morocco), government officials (e.g. in Turkey and Libya), or religion (e.g. in Pakistan).
• Violations of national laws, including copyright and intellectual property protection laws (e.g. in Germany), violations of hate speech, ethics, or morality-based laws, e.g. in Iran, and preventing access to videos judged inappropriate for youth,[448] which is also done by YouTube with the YouTube Kids app and with "restricted mode".[449]
• Reducing distractions at work or school,[450] e.g. in Australia.
• Reducing the amount of network bandwidth used.[451][452][453]
In some countries, YouTube is completely blocked, either through a long term 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. 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. 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.[447]
In some countries, YouTube is completely blocked, either through a long term 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. 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. 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.[447]
Several countries have previously blocked access to YouTube:
• Morocco blocked access in May 2007,
• Turkey blocked access between 2008 and 2010 In 2014, Turkey blocked the access for the second time, after "a high-level intelligence leak."[462][463][464]
• Pakistan blocked access on February 23, 2008 The ban was lifted in January 2016 after YouTube launched a Pakistan-specific version.[473]
• Turkmenistan blocked access on December 25, 2009, for unknown reasons. Other websites, such as LiveJournal were also blocked.[474]
• Libya blocked access on January 24, 2010, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Russia, 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.[477][478][479][480][481][482]
• In Libya and Egypt, the Innocence of Muslims trailer was blamed[by whom?] for violent protests in September 2012.
•
• YouTube has also faced criticism over the handling of offensive content in some of its videos. The uploading of videos containing defamation, pornography, and material encouraging criminal conduct is forbidden by YouTube's "Community Guidelines".[325] YouTube relies on its users to flag the content of videos as inappropriate, and a YouTube employee will view a flagged video to determine whether it violates the site's guidelines.[325]
• In July 2008, the Culture and Media Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom stated that it was "unimpressed" with YouTube's system for policing its videos, and argued that "proactive review of content should be standard practice for sites hosting user-generated content".
• In October 2010, U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner urged YouTube to remove from its website videos of imam Anwar al-Awlaki. Following media reports about PRISM, NSA's massive electronic surveillance program,
• in June 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including YouTube. According to leaks of said program, YouTube joined the PRISM program in 2010.[364]
• In March 2017, the government of the United Kingdom pulled its advertising campaigns from YouTube, after reports that its ads had appeared on videos containing extremist content. The government demanded assurances that its advertising would "be delivered in a safe and appropriate way". The Guardian newspaper, as well as other major British and U.S. brands, similarly suspended their advertising on YouTube in response to their advertising appearing near offensive content. Google stated that it had "begun an extensive review of our advertising policies and have made a public commitment to put in place changes that give brands more control over where their ads appear".[369][370] In early April 2017, the YouTube channel h3h3Productions presented evidence claiming that a Wall Street Journal article had fabricated screenshots showing major brand advertising on an offensive video containing Johnny Rebel music overlaid on a Chief Keef music video, citing that the video itself had not earned any ad revenue for the uploader. The video was retracted after it was found that the ads had actually been triggered by the use of copyrighted content in the video.[371][372]
• On April 6, 2017, YouTube announced that in order to "ensure revenue only flows to creators who are playing by the rules", it would change its practices to require that a channel undergo a policy compliance review, and have at least 10,000 lifetime views, before they may join the Partner Program.[373]
• In January 2018, YouTube creator Logan Paul faced criticism for a video he had uploaded from a trip to Japan, where he encountered a body of a suicide death in the Aokigaharaforest. The video proved controversial due to its content, with its handling of the subject matter being deemed insensitive by critics. On January 10—eleven days after the video was published—YouTube announced that it would cut Paul from the Google Preferred advertising program. Six days later, YouTube announced tighter thresholds for the partner program to "significantly improve our ability to identify creators who contribute positively to the community", under which channels must have at least 4,000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months and at least 1,000 subscribers. YouTube also announced that videos approved for the Google Preferred program would become subject to manual review, and that videos would be rated based on suitability (with advertisers allowed to choose).[374][375][376]
• These changes led to further criticism of YouTube from independent channels, who alleged that the service had been changing its algorithms to give a higher prominence to professionally-produced content (such as celebrities, music videos and clips from late night talk shows), that attract wide viewership and has a lower risk of alienating mainstream advertisers, at the expense of the creators that had bolstered the service's popularity.[377][378]