Social Media Websites Banned Worldwide

According to the recent World Information Access report, since 2003, “64 citizens unaffiliated with news organizations have been arrested for their blogging activities”. But it’s not just individual bloggers who are under threat. There have been numerous attempts by governments to censor social media sites. Using IBM’s ManyEyes tool, we’ve created a map of the most censored websites around the world.
You can find the World Information Access report here [PDF] [via]
Unfortunately, this list is probably only the tip of the iceberg. Most of the reports of censorship are based on stories by major news outlets. If we have missed any sites or countries then please leave a link in the comments section to an article with more details so we can update the map.
Also, please feel free to embed the map on your own site. You don’t need to attribute a link to this site, but it would be nice if you could link to one of the following sites:
globalvoicesonline.org
committeetoprotectbloggers.org
We only looked at platforms and not individual sites. While some of the sites are no longer banned, we thought it was better to include any that have been banned previously.
Click on the map below to interact with it. (You can also use the ManyEyes tool to update the data yourself).
Here is a table listing which sites have been banned by each country. The most censored site was YouTube where we found reports of nine countries that had censored the site over the last few years.
| Country | Banned Websites |
|---|---|
| Brazil | YouTube, Wordpress |
| China | YouTube, Wikipedia |
| Ethiopia | Blogger |
| India | Blogger |
| Indonesia | YouTube, MySpace |
| Iran | Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, Orkut |
| Morocco | YouTube |
| Pakistan | YouTube, Blogger, Wikipedia |
| Saudi Arabia | Flickr, Orkut |
| Syria | |
| Thailand | YouTube |
| Turkey | YouTube, Wordpress |
| United Arab Emirates | Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Orkut |
List of sources for each site below:
Youtube
MySpace
Flickr
Blogger
Wordpress
Wikipedia
Orkut
If you have any details of other sites that have been banned then please leave a link in the comments section and we’ll try to update it other the next few days. You can also use and add to the data if you sign-up to ManyEyes.
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16 Readers have left their thoughts
zahra
Hi
I’m from Iran
Wikipedia not filtered in Iran
please correct your list.
[reply to this comment]
Jun 23rd, 2008
projectlib
Hi…I’m in Thailand
Youtube is blocked by some ISP not all…
I can see youtube some ISP…
Thank you
[reply to this comment]
Jun 24th, 2008
Jackson
Nice overview. Thanks for putting this together. It’s interesting to which countries fear free speech.
[reply to this comment]
Jul 2nd, 2008
Martin
Why blogger and wikipedia have been banned? I am confused to know that. Youtube has some serious issues so no wonders on that.
[reply to this comment]
Jul 7th, 2008
Expat in Morocco
You should check out your sources. YouTube was banned in Morocco for a short period only. It is alive and well for more than a year now here. Please don’t spread disinfo, do some homework before posting. What’s banned in Morocco? Google Earth. Why? I would like to know that too.
[reply to this comment]
Jul 9th, 2008
admin
@zahra, @projectlib @Expat in Morocco. As the article says:
“While some of the sites are no longer banned, we thought it was better to include any that have been banned previously.”
The article doesn’t claim that any of those sites are banned now, just that they have been banned previously. I think @Expat in Morocco your accusation of spreading “disinfo” is unjustified as we link to the sources that the map is based on.
Thanks for all your comments.
[reply to this comment]
Jul 9th, 2008
Smart Marketing Expert
Note: Off the top of my head.
China: sensor Google
France: Filtering Yahoo at one time
I am sure there are more, brain tired for now
[reply to this comment]
Jul 17th, 2008
projectlib
Thank you admin I’m understand it… ^-^
[reply to this comment]
Jul 21st, 2008
MANISH
orkut site is banned in india.. when i go to the web page it says the site is banned..
[reply to this comment]
Jul 23rd, 2008
MANISH
orkut is banned in india…pls do something..
[reply to this comment]
Jul 23rd, 2008
Cleverneutron
youtube was banned in Indonesia in a short time, but now it works fine
[reply to this comment]
Aug 11th, 2008
zazo
Manish, Orkut is not Banned in India, nor Blogger.
[reply to this comment]
Aug 25th, 2008
Tom
I think this goes against the basic rights of webs. I don’t know why they do so but it is not a right thing.
[reply to this comment]
Aug 26th, 2008