NordVPN Study: YouTube has the most desired restricted content

Research explores what type of online service the Japan wants to access the most and why

LONDON, March 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The things people search for on engines like Google can tell a lot about how they live. New research by NordVPN reveals that video content on YouTube is the most desirable to unlock.

In total, 90% of Japanese internet users searching how to unblock certain online services  want to gain access to YouTube, 8.9% to Facebook and the rest attributed to Twitter and Instagram. People worldwide have a wider list of blocked content they want to gain access to, but YouTube is still the king - it attributes to  82.7% of all queries worldwide.

Japanese people enjoy free internet, and the country ranks at 12 out of 100 countries in terms of internet availability reported by Freedom house.  However, as per report,  "for the third consecutive year, internet freedom declined". 

Why do people look for how to unblock YouTube much more than other services?

Youtube is the second most popular website as of August 2020, with one billion hours of content watched daily. "Not surprisingly, some video content is not available in certain countries due to copyright or censorship. This makes people look for workarounds," says Daniel Markusson.

When it comes to countries where the internet is considered less free, search queries about accessing Google lead the list. The search volumes of this query come right after YouTube in Indonesia (32%), Turkey (12.5%), and India (2%).

What are the top 5 countries looking to unblock content on YouTube?

First on the list is the US, amounting to 7.7% of all "unblock YouTube" searches.  The country is followed by India (6,5%) and Indonesia (5,3%).

"The reasons behind attempts to access blocked content on YouTube might be notably different. The high search volumes in the US are the result of students trying to bypass rules at school, where bandwidth is often blocked for YouTube. On the other hand, internet users from India and Indonesia are either trying to overcome geo-restrictions imposed by content creators or bypass censorship. Both of these explanations apply to Japan.," notes Daniel Markuson.

The number of attempts to reach YouTube content is the same in  the UK and the Philippines. The two countries made the top 5, making up 1.4% of all searches each.

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