what is the real reason for Yahoo Answers being shut down? is it due to agreements with Big Media companies to censor people's opinions?

Yahoo! is part of the Democrat, Liberal Media Empire. An Evil Empire made of NY Times, Washington Post, CNN, PBS, NBC, CBS, Tribune, Newsnation, ABC, Disney, ESPN, MSNBC, CNBC, Twitter, Facebook. These are Fake Media companies. These Media companies want to take away legally owned guns, endorse Abortion, endorse same-sex marriage (especially Disney), love Black Lives Matter, they are against Law Enforcement and our Military. They want to coddle and protect criminals, Felons, give them the right to vote. They want to coddle and protect illegal aliens.  

Yahoo Answers was conceived as a questions and answers site not a chat room. People using it as a chat room by inviting and expressing opinions on contentuous subjects is what has gone wrong.

 Because this site is a boil on the ar*e of the internet.

Some sites have admitted to a censorship-- and more coming. You can look that up. Some difference of opinions  on the political  side will not be allowed by some.  Wouldn't surprise me if that is the real reason.  You have to be a fool to think it couldn't be after the huge mount of spying and " phone and phone and other records being kept" before on many Americans without warrant or just cause during the Obama administration. Which was denied at first. Till Snowden brought more to the front..

Where will these yahoo records go? Will they be kept . We have access for a short time who will  be able to read our yahoo footprint   anytime-government?

Not into conspiracy theories usually but this well could be , Because of History of "recent" censorship  and the mass propaganda put out by media. And  I find it hard to believe with the hundreds of  millions of followers  they were losing much money.

Censorship usually becomes abusive--HISTORY.

It's about control

you cannot transfer your level 7 status ..............  LOL

It's shutting because it's not making money. No one uses it. It's gone

Yahoo will be selling the information we've all provided it and making mega bucks from our Q's & A's.

You're giving conspiracy theories way too much credit.  Yahoo was designed to be a "repository of knowledge," NOT to be an opinion showcase or a chatroom.  They failed at that for whatever reason, most likely because it was too expensive/required too much active involvement to shape into something similar to quora.  They mostly let it be as this kind of halfway house since it must have generated some income, enough to cover the server space required at any rate.  No, I think the biggest reason it's closing is because most browsers now offer built-in ad-blockers and this place just isn't attractive enough for users to either pay for or give up more data about themselves for yahoo to sell (this is how facebook etc make their money).  Money is almost always the answer.  Companies don't provide anything "for free" out of the goodness of their hearts, they always hope that freebies will result in a profit down the line.  Answers has been in a decline spiral due to underinvestment for a long time, the owners have reached the point where it's finally more cost effective to pay off whatever staff they have left and turn off the lights than to just leave the site to chug along.  Most likely there's a serving contract on the servers hosting this site coming to an end so now's the cheapest time to do it.  They're being polite to give users a heads up.  It's just business.  If it made money it would remain.

It's due to all the trolls that have taken it over.

I’m more inclined to think it’s because Yahoo! is incompetently run and Answers was born half-assed and deteriorated from there, to the point it’s not worth the electricity to run the servers any more.