YouTube blocked again?

I tried to view some videos on YouTube this morning but no luck! Has our government blocked YouTube again? It would seem so.

This is what happens when I ping youtube:

ping uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN4ViZ21N0 ping: cannot resolve
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xyN4ViZ21N0: Unknown host

If our government has blocked YouTube again – this time because of the movie Fitna, or for whatever reason, I think we need to re-assess what we are doing. Just because some idiot puts up something in cyberspace that is offensive to us, why do we react by depriving ourselves of all the valuable content that is out there? How does this affect the chap who has put up the offensive content? He cares two hoots that we are not viewing whatever it is. Can we use some common sense please – for once?

At present I am working on a presentation and all the video content that I could be using is unavailable to me. What the … !

Just for your information, the video I was trying to access was a very innocent one that is meant to show how technology was used to solve one physical challenge:

The world’s first “voiceless” phone call took place thanks to a neckband that converts nerve impulses into speech

If anyone knows what is up with YouTube – and if we have indeed blocked it, do let me know. I think we need to take this up seriously with the new Government. Is this freedom of the media? The media is not only our newspapers, magazines, radio and television channels. For most of us, it is the online media that we rely on in our day-to-day work, in our research, in our educational pursuits.