Chicago (IL) – YouTube and other websites whose content is largely dependent on user independent can be a pain in the you know what, especially if you try to prevent certain content to make it out into the wild. That happened to the government of Bangladesh, who found itself exposed when a user posted a video about an argument between the prime minister Sheikh Hasina and army officers over a mutiny. Without options to limit the flow of the information, the government simply blocked access to YouTube, lifted this ban earlier today.
At the center of the controversial video was a meeting over a mutiny by border guards. The entire meeting reportedly lasted about 3 hours, but the video had a length of just about 40 minutes. However, the content, showing guardsmen, including 56 senior officers, being angry with the government and the way the mutiny, which left 74 people dead, apparently was explosive enough to prompt the government to block national access to YouTube. In fact, the government said that YouTube had been blocked in the “national interest”.
The Associated Press reports that the ban was lifted earlier today, because “tensions had been diluted”, according to Zia Ahmed, chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. The video was also available on other websites, which were also blocked by the government of Bangladesh. There was no information whether those bans had been lifted as well.
