Jihad preacher Anwar al-Awlaki’s “content remains consistently and readily available on YouTube”
YouTube recently removed a “Robert Spencer” playlist as “inappropriate.” YouTube has deleted a popular ex-Muslim’s Arabic material criticizing Islam. YouTube is censoring content to suit Iran’s Islamic authorities.
“YouTube accused of labelling terror preacher Anwar al-Awlaki’s calls for violent jihad as ‘inappropriate’ content – but failing to ban up to 70,000 of his videos,” by Jasper Hamill, The Sun, September 29, 2017:
YOUTUBE has been accused of labelling videos of an infamous terror preacher’s calls for violent jihad “inappropriate” and leaving them available for viewing rather than banning them altogether.The Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a non-profit dedicated to tackling extremism, alleged that it has found more than 70,000 videos of Anwar al-Awlaki, a dead radical imam whose sermons are said to have inspired atrocities including the 7/7 bombings, the Charlie Hebdo attacks and the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre.Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, said: “YouTube is a prime example of how internet companies are inconsistently responding to terrorist propaganda online.“These companies need to take more transparent, coherent and vigorous actions if we are to reduce the spread of this terrorist content.”YouTube recently introduced a new policy known internally as “tougher treatment” which is designed to reduce the audience for videos deemed to be “inappropriate or offensive to some audiences”.The Google-owned video site is now putting videos into a “limited state” if they are deemed controversial enough to be considered objectionable, but not hateful, pornographic or violent enough to be banned altogether.Videos which are put into a limited state cannot be embedded on other websites, easily published on social media using the usual share buttons and other users cannot comment on them – but they can still be watched.But the CEP’s research suggests al-Awlaki has been subjected to “tougher treatment” rather than being banned.It said one particularly vitriolic speech called the “Battle of Hearts and Minds” could still be seem om YouTube and had been labelled “inappropriate or offensive to some viewers”.The CEP said Al Qaeda and ISIS have used the video “to rally supporters and lionize terrorists”.It claimed that Awlaki’s “content remains consistently and readily available on YouTube” and alleged that it found 70,000 results when it searched YouTube for “Anwar al-Awlaki” just one month ago – up from 61,900 when it did the same on December 19 2015.The non-profit also alleged that YouTube’s recommendations “nudged” users towards Awlaki’s “incendiary and egregious content”….
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