YouTube is often though of a black hole for time. A place where 2 hours can pass and you can't remember what you watched, but you're left with a nagging feeling that you're a little dumber than when you started. But YouTube is more than that, and from personal experience, I know that it's possible to teach yourself anything and everything through YouTube videos.

To China, this kind of service presents a danger for the present regime.

But how can teaching yourself to make solar energy or even just watching the latest videos of skateboarders crushing their nuts on grind-rail cause such a stir?

It's no secret that political and religious video exist on various YouTube channels, and everyone can access them. And commenters are brutal, crude, and crass.

China would of course not be immune to such abuse.

But that's not the real reason.

The real reason is that now camera phones producing a high quality, convenient way to record events 'on the fly', it would make it much harder to suppress news that paints the Chinese government in a bad light.

With full control of websites like YouKu, Tudou, and other YouTube equivalents in China, videos posted of officials being caught breaking the law, protesters organizing in the streets, or whatever events are deemed "inharmonious" can be taken down within hours, if no minutes of being posted.

The same is not true of foreign-owned YouTube.

So you get the picture.

But there are ways around this kind of censorship. Technology is king in this age, and private access to YouTube in China can be achieved through a VPN, or virtual private network.

VPNs are typically used in business to provide corporations a way to have remote employees receive and transmit data securely, while connecting to the internet in unsecured locations. By digitally encrypting the data they send, and 'tunneling' this data through a network of private servers, it's possible to create a secure connection anywhere.

And the whole point is security, so regardless of the content, only the end-users and the VPN server know the content of data.

This means you can transmit documents and video without worry of hackers intercepting your private information. It also means that which websites you access are not known to your ISP.

By using a VPN in China, nether your Chinese ISP, nor the individuals working for the Chinese government can access your private data. It doesn't matter which ISP you connect to, which network you use to connect to the internet, or any other variables regarding your type of connection. VPNs give you access to YouTube, even from behind the "Great Firewall of China".