I returned to Brazil on Monday, and while I'm trying to get internet installed in my new apartment I learned that YouTube was blocked in Brazil by court order. It's all because of a scandal in September of last year when the media discovered a video (on YouTube) of Daniella Cicarelli (MTV Brazil presenter and former girlfriend of soccer superstar Ronaldo) having very public sex with her boyfriend on a Spanish beach. Cicarelli won a court order in September prohibiting the video, but since YouTube did not immediately remove it the Tribunal de Justiça ordered on January 3 that the entire site be blocked.

The outcry against the censorship was so great that the Tribunal de Justiça issued a new order on Tuesday allowing access to YouTube (while still blocking the video) and reserving the right to take "drastic measures" against YouTube if it does not respect the Tribunal's decisions and does not develop software to block prohibited material.

In the meantime, MTV Brasil has received over 20,000 emails of protest. Virtually everyone in Brazil saw the video of Cicarelli and her boyfriend last year, but there are several reasons why we have zero sympathy for their case:
- The video was taken from a small distance on a crowded beach, and Cicarelli should have known she was taking a risk.
- Like several sex tape scandals (Paris Hilton!), the video only helped make Cicarelli more famous.
- Censoring an entire country's access to an important source of multimedia is both extreme and ludicrous, as internet censorship often backfires and the video can easily be found on several other sites.