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Brazilian ISP block on YouTube is really due to a court decision

According to brazilian media, the brazilian ISP Brasil Telecom officially confirmed that YouTube IP addresses are blocked on its backbone due to a court decision.

On my last post I’ve said that I was just waiting to see the explanation for the block, from Brasil Telecom. Now we can confirm that it is not just a screw up on their part, as commented on Boing Boing.

So we can confirm it: Brazil is now in the list of countries where the State uses mechanisms for Internet Censorship.

Fortunately, I haven’t seen any report of other ISPs implementing the same block, yet. So I see two possible ways this story will continue:

• Other ISPs don’t implement the block. Brasil Telecom will not like to have the competitive disadvantage of not providing access to a popular site while other ISPs still provide it. Brasil Telecom, users, and other ISPs fight against the court sentence. We win.
• Other ISPs implement a similar block. We become China. Censorship wins. We lose.

To be continued…