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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

YouTube finally removes jihad terror mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki’s videos

Nov 12, 2017 6:05 pm By Robert Spencer

The appalling New York Times pseudo-journalist Scott Shane has likened me to Anwar al-Awlaki, even though I have never aided any terrorists in plotting their attacks, and have never perpetrated, approved of, or called for any acts of terrorist violence. Will Shane pressure the New York Times to take down my videos next? He probably wouldn’t have to lean on them very hard to get them to do so: YouTube has already removed a “Robert Spencer” playlist that someone had on YouTube solely for his own reference, has several times removed Palestinian Media Watch’s YouTube page, and generally harasses foes of jihad terror. It’s just one aspect of how the social media giants appear determined to deny a platform to those who dare speak out against and oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression. It’s good that they’ve finally taken down al-Awlaki’s videos, but why did it take them so long?

“In ‘Watershed Moment,’ YouTube Blocks Extremist Cleric’s Message,” by Scott Shane, New York Times, November 12, 2017:

WASHINGTON — For eight years, the jihadist propaganda of Anwar al-Awlaki has helped shape a generation of American terrorists, including the Fort Hood gunman, the Boston Marathon bombers and the perpetrators of massacres in San Bernardino, Calif., and Orlando, Fla.

And YouTube, the world’s most popular video site, has allowed hundreds of hours of Mr. Awlaki’s talks to be within easy reach of anyone with a phone or computer.

Now, under growing pressure from governments and counterterrorism advocates, YouTube has drastically reduced its video archive of Mr. Awlaki, an American cleric who remains the leading English-language jihadist recruiter on the internet six years after he was killed by a United States drone strike. Using video fingerprinting technology, YouTube now flags his videos automatically and human reviewers block most of them before anyone sees them, company officials say.

A search for “Anwar al-Awlaki” on YouTube this fall found more than 70,000 videos, including his life’s work, from his early years as a mainstream American imam to his later years with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

Today the same search turns up just 18,600 videos, and the vast majority are news reports about his life and death, debates over the legality of his killing, refutations of his work by scholars or other material about him. A small number of clips of Mr. Awlaki speaking disappeared after The New York Times sent an inquiry about the change of policy last week.

“It’s a watershed moment on the question of whether we’re going to allow the unchecked proliferation of cyberjihad,” said Mark D. Wallace, the chief executive of the Counter Extremism Project, a research organization that has long called for Mr. Awlaki’s recordings to be removed from the web. “You just don’t want to make it easy for people to listen to a guy who wants to harm us.”

Mr. Wallace, a former diplomat, said the fact that much of Mr. Awlaki’s YouTube presence was mainstream lectures on Islamic history did not justify keeping it on the site. “It’s an insult to Islam to say the teaching of the religion can’t stand the loss of a preacher who was also the leading propagandist of jihad in English,” he said.

The policy shift at YouTube comes in the face of a growing chorus of criticism for internet companies, including Facebook, Twitter and Google, which owns YouTube. They had long argued that they were merely neutral platforms with no responsibility for what users posted.

But they were quick to remove copyrighted material, child pornography and beheading videos, for example, which posed an obvious threat to their business. They have slowly stepped up the removal of extremist content, spurred on after 2014 by the Islamic State’s use of Twitter to recruit fighters….

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Filed Under: Featured, Internet jihad Tagged With: Anwar al-Awlaki, Scott Shane, YouTube


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Comments

  1. St. Manuel II Palaiologos says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 6:23 pm

    Took them long enough. That said, his videos were pretty informative about the nature of Islam.

    • John Forbes says

      Nov 13, 2017 at 6:30 am

      BIT sad they are gone actually !
      THEY SHOWED THE BALANCED & TOTALLY FAIR TREATMENT OF THIS DELIGHTFUL CONVERT TO THE RELIGION OF PEACE & THE POLITICALLY CORRECT NARRATIVE ON OFFER !!

  2. warren raymond says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 6:24 pm

    Not good. I would like to see all of this stuff remain available. Fortunately there are thousands like him who ‘misunderstand’ their Islam in the same way….

    • Benedict says

      Nov 12, 2017 at 8:50 pm

      ?

  3. Linde Barrera says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 6:28 pm

    “They are more than a day late and more than a buck short”, as we might say in the ghetto, but this is a step in the right direction.

  4. RICHARD CANARY says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 6:41 pm

    When is America going to do anything besides talk about and write about Islam, Muslims, and jihad?

    Islam is an international fraudulent cult that is contracting with its members for murder assignments on a regular basis. Where are the investigations that have produced tangible results with convictions and death penalties? Where are the organized crime units that should have many Muslims under strict surveillance?

    We have National Guard troops in every state, and yet they never show up for any of the crime events perpetrated by Muslims. Nor for their demonstrations that block traffic for hours at a time.

    Where are the news stories that tell about a mosque being raided and tossed for weapans caches and evidences of crimes yet to be committed? When are the Muslims in all levels of our goverments going to be let go on the basis of questionable affiliations and contacts?

    At what point in the “immigration jihad” does our government wipe out Muslims who house, protect, hide, feed, and aide jihadis living amongst us? At what point do we Americans put OUR people ahead of these
    interlopers who are bent on destroying OUR nation? When do we destroy THEIR homelands?

  5. mortimer says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 7:09 pm

    Scott Shane should be ashamed and so should his editor. He should retract his unfounded remarks comparing Robert Spencer to a TERRORISM PREACHER.

    I read Awlaki’s sermons and they are a whole-hearted endorsement and apology for JIHAD-TERRORISM, SUBJUGATION, ENSLAVEMENT, EXTORTION and even GENOCIDE.

    To compare that to Robert Spencer a promoter of American constitutional values is PREPOSTEROUS and BLATANTLY MENDACIOUS.

    Scott Shane should be shunned by honest journalists.

  6. gravenimage says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 7:13 pm

    YouTube finally removes jihad terror mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki’s videos
    ……………………

    YouTube has taken down countless non-violent *Anti-Jihad* videos, but it has taken them seven years after al-Awlaki’s death to take this preacher of violent Jihad’s videos down?

    Insanity, especially given how many violent Jihadists have specifically cited his sermons as inspiring their Jihad terror attacks.

    And while YouTube may have–*finally*–removed his sermons from their site, his savage stuff is still all over the internet, only occasionally critical of his views.

  7. marc says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 8:38 pm

    test

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 12, 2017 at 8:45 pm

      Marc, is there a technical problem with Jihad Watch right now? I keep running into “Sucari firewall” messages.

      • marc says

        Nov 12, 2017 at 9:01 pm

        just me doing some maintenance, nothing to worry about

  8. gravenimage says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 9:05 pm

    Thank you, Marc. 🙂

  9. Timothy McAlee, Sr. G.eD. says

    Nov 12, 2017 at 10:49 pm

    These Muslim fanatics believe that “allah” will Reward them with 72 Virgins & they could NOT be more Wrong! Mohammad was a Dyslexic & misread the Quran! It says, “with 27 Virgins, will I reward YOU, BUTT YOU won’t know if they are Male, or female, until YOU GET HERE SUCKERS”!!!

    • Muslim 2017 says

      Nov 13, 2017 at 5:41 pm

      I was doing a search for the hadith of the 72 virgins and I couldn’t find it. Could you assist me with this? Thanks.

      • gravenimage says

        Nov 13, 2017 at 8:36 pm

        Muslim 2017 wrote:

        I was doing a search for the hadith of the 72 virgins and I couldn’t find it. Could you assist me with this? Thanks.
        …………………….

        I see that “Muslim 2017” is here pretending that pious Muslims are not waging violent Jihad with the belief that they will be rewarded with Paradise, including Houris to eternally rape.

        Instead, he is pretending that this is something the “filthy Infidels” and “Islamophobes” have invented.

        But this is not the case–Islamic texts are full of such references:

        “For the Shahid in the Divine presence there will be six qualities: [1] he will be forgiven from the first moment his blood is spilled; [2] he shall see his seat in Paradise and be protected against the punishment of the grave; [3] he shall be safe from the Greatest Terror [the rising of the dead]; [4] he shall be crowned with the diadem of dignity, one ruby of which is worth more than the entire world and its contents; [5] he shall be coupled with seventy-two spouses from the wide-eyed maidens of Paradise; and [6] he shall be granted to intercede for seventy of his relatives.”
        Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal , Sunan al-Tirmidhi

        Islamic Hadith expert Shaykh Gibril Haddad rated this Hadith “Hasan”, or “good”.

        This is also rated “Hasan”:

        Abu Umama said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “None is made to enter Paradise by Allah Most High except Allah Most High shall marry him to seventy-two wives, two of them from the wide-eyed maidens of Paradise and seventy of them his inheritance from the People of Hellfire, not one of them but her attraction never lags nor his arousal ever wanes.”
        Ibn Majah, Ibn `Adi in the Kamil, and al-Bayhaqi in al-Ba`th wal-Nushur

        And the Qur’an itself, while it does not mention the number 72 specifically, makes clear that Muslims in Paradise will have access to these Houris:

        Qur’an 44:54: “So (it will be), and We shall marry them to Houris (female fair ones) with wide, lovely eyes”

        Qur’an 52:20: “They will recline (with ease) on thrones arranged in ranks. And We shall marry them to Houris (female, fair ones) with wide lovely eyes”

        So “Muslim 2017” is, once again, being dishonest. No surprise there…

  10. MFritz says

    Nov 13, 2017 at 1:21 am

    There’s something very rotten at YouTube. Alternatives do exist. Use them.

  11. Acc says

    Nov 13, 2017 at 7:42 am

    I wonder whether it is good idea to remove al-Awlaki videos from Youtube. The videos are helping people to understand the true nature of Islam. Let the muslims go on shooting their own leg.

  12. Khushi says

    Nov 13, 2017 at 8:14 am

    It took them so long to get around to removing this. But any video which hurts ‘religious feelings’ of muslims, will be taken down in a few hours.

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 13, 2017 at 8:50 pm

      All too true.

  13. Alarmed Pig Farmer says

    Nov 13, 2017 at 9:02 am

    b>YouTube demarcates the line where honest Islam dialog stops

    Google’s announcement yesterday that it will take down several videos on its YouTube division of Anwar al-Awlaki, but leave some up that were produced before Anwar was “radicalized,” whenever that was.

    This draws a definitive dividing line between what’s acceptable in discussing Islam and what’s not. You can literally see the dividing line on YouTube. Calls for mass murder are out, but still in are Anwar’s “religious” lectures before he was “radicalized.” Betcha the videos still up are chock full of Islam calling for what the Holy Ko-Ran calls for: world Shariah takeover, the primacy of Islam over all, submission or death.

    But criticizing *that* is still verboten, as if it’s somehow detached from and unrelated to the acts of the Mujahadin, the mass murder part. The line is drawn visually now up on social media, but the line’s been drawn for a long time now, at least since 9/11 but maybe since ’93. The contents of Islam are strictly off limits, except buried in boring videos that few will watch and fewer will objectively analyze.

  14. yzkrieg says

    Nov 14, 2017 at 4:47 am

    I tried to find jihad watch website using Bing it doesn’t show up in my search results. I wonder why?

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