YouTube is blocked in Syria. Unlike Iran with Facebook, there is no question that it is an official ban-and-block by the Syrian government. According to Ammar Abdulhamid of Tharwa and Hamsa and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, the nature of the block is clear.

There is a report in Arabic on blocked sites that clearly identifies YouTube as one of the blocked sites. Also, there are several public reports referring to directives from the Syrian Ministry of Information prohibiting Syrians from publishing any webposts on an anonymous basis and threatening legal actions against all Syrian sites that publish anonymous reports.

This led me to ask a specialist in Internet filtering a question which I will ask again here.

In addition to ascertaining which countries block which kinds of speech on which type of platforms (blogging, online sites, etc.), can we also determine which specific proprietary instruments are blocked? By this I mean specific products and services, such as YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger and so on.

If you know part of the answer, let us know. Do you know of a specific product that is blocked or banned in a specific country?

Update: The rationale for the blocking YouTube in Syria is apparently the posting there of a satirical video featuring the First Lady as Marlyn Monroe, Seven Year Itch-style, with her dress blown up, bidding farewell to a foreign dignitary at the airport with her husband.