YouTube has removed thousands of videos from extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki
Up until his death at the hands of US forces in 2011, Anwar al-Awlaki was a major voice for Islamic extremists, advocating for war and attacks against the US, and helped to inspire numerous terrorist attacks around the world. YouTube recently took the unusual step of removing tens of thousands of videos of the cleric, according to a report in The New York Times.
Google removed hundreds of al-Awalaki’s videos in 2010 which directly advocated violence, following the conviction of Roshonara Choudhry, a radicalized follower who stabbed British MP Stephen Timms earlier that year. At the time, a YouTube spokesperson cited the site’s guidelines against inciting violence. But al-Awalaki posted tens of thousands of other videos, and in…
