Since its inception more than a decade ago, a number of countries have placed temporary bans on YouTube, usually because of objections to certain content. Egypt, which is preparing to block the video streaming site for a month, is a punishment for showing the controversial 2012 video "The Innocence of Muslims".
The 14-minute clip, which a consultant called "trailer" for a feature film that was screened only once at Hollywood rented cinema, provoked indignation in the Arab and Muslim countries when it arrived on YouTube in 2012. The video representation of the Prophet Muhammad made by the United States as a pedophile and jester led to anti-American demonstrations around the world that resulted in injury and even death.
Law experts said the government could not sue film producers because of US laws on freedom of expression.
In 2013, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies was ordered to block YouTube by a lower administrative court about the video, but the case remained stuck in the process of calling since.
Reuters reports that the ministry said at the time that such an action would disrupt Google's search engine and could result in potentially huge costs and job losses in Egypt. Now the highest administrative court in the country has ordered the ban of a month.
Pakistan was another country to ban YouTube as a result of the video. The Telecommunications Authority of Pakistan ordered blocked access in 2012. The block was not officially lifted until 2016, when YouTube launched a local version of the site. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sudan have also blocked the service because of YouTube's inability to remove the clip.
Most of the anti-Islamic content of the video was dubbed on the spoken lines of the original cast. The people involved in the film have disavowed it.
The Egyptian ban is considered final and can not be appealed. The decision states that all links to the movie must also be blocked. Saturday afternoon, YouTube was still accessible in the country's capital, Cairo.
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