At a time when extended site outages are becoming less common, YouTube was down on Sunday for at least 40 minutes.
The first reports started coming in at about 11:30 a.m. PT and the site came back up at about 12:15 p.m. PT
Attempts to log on to the Google-owned site typically timed out. Representatives from the company could not be reached Sunday morning.
However, the BBC reported that Pakistan's attempts to block access to YouTube may have been inadvertently been responsible for the outage. Earlier in the day, Pakistan shutoff access to the video site to its country's residents in response to the posting of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that have outraged many Muslims.
The BBC Web site's technology editor, Darren Waters, says that it's likely that--to prevent Pakistan's residents from accessing the site--Pakistan Telecom hijacked YouTube's IP and passed that information on the country's Internet service providers so that queries to YouTube would be redirected. However, the details were apparently leaked by Asian ISP PCCW, leading to the global blackout, the BCC reported.
Engineers at YouTube were able to lift the blockade after contacting PCCW, according to the report.
"This was probably a simple mistake by an engineer at Pakistan Telecom," an unidentified "leading net professional" told the BCC. "There's nothing to suggest this was malicious."
This article was first published as a blog on CNET News.com.
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