Well there's banning and there's effective banning. If you make the regulatory structure so cumbersome that no one wants to participate, that's an effective ban

Well there's banning and there's effective banning. If you make the regulatory structure so cumbersome that no one wants to participate, that's an effective ban, whether you intend it or not, whether you realize it or not. Given the almost complete lack of foreign Internet companies in China, I'd say there's good evidence the effective ban is intentional. That's really what I mean when I say "China banned Youtube". Also, Google has shown prior willingness to comply with Chinese regulation (eg participation before the pullout in ~2010 and Dragonfly [1]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)