Anwar al-Awlaki videos available on YouTube | UK news | guardian.co.uk

Anwar al-Awlaki, whose content is available on YouTube: Owner Google says it would be impossible to preview all video content. Photograph: AP

Videos by the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have radicalised Roshonara Choudhry, who stabbed Stephen Timms MP, are widely available on YouTube despite the US and UK authorities' concerns about the dangers his teachings pose.

In the US, the New York Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner has demanded that the site take down 700 videos that he says pose a risk to the public. "There is no reason we should give killers like al-Awlaki access to one of the world's largest bully pulpits so they can inspire more violent acts within our borders, or anywhere else in the world," Weiner told the New York Daily News in October

Awlaki is linked to multiple attempted plots against the US by plane and by car bomb. He is also linked to one successful atrocity – the fatal shootings of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas by an American Muslim fellow soldier in November 2009.

YouTube said it reviews videos that are flagged by its community, and removes videos from known terrorist organisations or which promote "dangerous or illegal" activities. It is understood that no detailed information about the videos that congressman Weiner has objected to has been received by the company.

A simple search on Awlaki's name by the Guardian turned up a number of videos on the site, apparently uploaded through a number of different accounts – though those could have been created by one person or group acting in concert.

It is effectively impossible for YouTube, which is owned by the search engine company Google, to monitor video content before it becomes public: in March it said more than 20 hours of video is uploaded worldwide every minute. Google argues it would not be feasible for staff to review that first, and instead it relies on the community to monitor YouTube's content. However a judgement in February in Italy implied that Google should screen every video before it is put up on the site.

Awlaki, an American who lives in Yemen, is considered so dangerous to US interests that he is the first ever of its citizens ever to be targeted by the CIA with a "kill or capture" order.

In a statement, a spokesman for Google, which owns YouTube, said: "YouTube's community guidelines prohibit videos that promote dangerous or illegal activities (including bomb-making, sniper attacks, or other terrorist acts), contain hate speech, and videos that are posted with the purpose of inciting others to commit specific, serious acts of violence.

"In addition, we remove all videos and terminate any account known to be registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) and used in an official capacity to further the interests of the FTO. We review all videos brought to our attention through community flagging seven days a week, and routinely remove content that violates our policies, usually in under an hour." 

via guardian.co.uk

Posted to What Gets Me Hot via Dogmeat