I read a very interesting (but long) article called YOUTUBE WAR: FIGHTING IN A WORLD OF CAMERAS IN EVERY CELL PHONE AND PHOTOSHOP ON EVERY COMPUTER by Cori E. Dauber.  Here is a synopsis of this 135-page report:

Terrorist attacks today are often media events in a second sense: information and communication technologies have developed to such a point that these groups can film, edit, and upload their own attacks within minutes of staging them, whether the Western media are present or not. In this radically new information environment, the enemy no longer depends on traditional media. This is the “YouTube War.” This monograph methodically lays out the nature of this new environment in terms of its implications for a war against media-savvy insurgents, and then considers possible courses of action for the Army and the U.S. military as they seek to respond to an enemy that has proven enormously adaptive to this new environment and the new type of warfare it enables.

In our world of cheap video production and free video hosting (thank you YouTube and LiveLink) we need to do everything in our power to fight the propagandizing terrorists wherever we find them – and that includes on YouTube.  As the study points out, the audience of the videos are two-fold.  They are both trying to recruit more terrorists and intimidate the people under their thumb, and trying to intimidate and strike fear into the hearts of the enemy — us.  Isn’t is nice of YouTube to help them out?  Take, for instance, this video:

It’s uploaded by findingtruthway and check out the links to the video listed in the statistics tab:

Look at where this is popular:

Obviously this video is reaching both audiences —  the west (which may include homegrown terrorists-in-the-making like Hasan) and the east are viewing.  So I decided to check out the websites where it’s linked.  First I went to alm0sul.com.  With the Al Qaeda flag on the home page banner, there’s little doubt as to the direction this website is pointing.


Here’s the linkage between this terrorist website and YouTube:

Assassin posts the typical list of places to download the video:

almosul administrator tells us what we are supposedly viewing – propaganda at it’s finest!


And then united islamic jihad  puts it up on YouTube and shares the link.  It IS an assumption, but it’s a possibility that “united islamic jihad” here, on the terrorist website, is the same person as “findingtruthway” at YouTube.


And oh goody!  There’s an English translation as well!



I copied the entire text, and if you want to see it, I’ll post it.

I decided to check Google to see if there are other YouTube videos linked at this website.  Of course there were.


You know me — I clicked the links.


Hey look — it’s united islamic jihad again!

And another:

And still more:

On another thread there’s more:

Lovely tagline by one of the posters:

So what about that other website, 7cgen.com?

This is a story posted which is supposedly taken from CNN called “Top al Qaeda leader blames Blackwater for Pershaw blasts” — the fact that it’s taken from CNN lends the terrorists credibility for their cause (and might I remind you that their “cause” is total domination of  and submission to Islam?)  It’s possible that the person who posted the story edited it – I did not check it out to see if it’s a word for word post or if it’s been edited.


And the video from YouTube is linked here as well:

According to YOUTUBE WAR, our troops have found several video production labs.  The method, as I understand it, is that terrorists actually set up an operation with an eye to how it can be used in video propaganda.  Apparently the second in command in each terrorist unit is the camera person.  Acts of terrorism are carried out and captured on video.  The videos are delivered to these offline (not connected to the internet) production houses which manipulte the videos for the most impact and then distribute them so that they can find their way to the internet.  Flagging videos at YouTube is therefore, truly, a front line battle.  As the statistics of this one video show, the viewers here in the west are seeing the videos – mostly probably through YouTube.  And those who are seeking terrorist material at the terrorist sites can view it there as well, thanks to YouTube.

This is not simply a game.  This is war.  And we don’t need to wonder who’s side YouTube is on.  A check of their TOS, Community Guidelines and whatnot turned this up:

Safety Center: Flagging a video off the site

A misconception among many YouTubers is that if you can get enough people to flag a video or a profile, you can have it removed. At YouTube, we have a staff that reviews each flag created by a user, so no matter how many flags come in, it will still be reviewed by a human being. If you see content that should be removed from the site, go ahead and flag it– only one flag is necessary to bring it to our attention.

So when we’ve flagged videos that are linked to terrorist sites, or pointed out that a particular video is a terrorist training video and yet that video remains hosted on YouTube’s free internet servers, we can only assume that YouTube has given tacit approval to the content of the videos.  Either that or their TOS are bogus.  You pick.

Hopefully it won’t be too late when we start holding them accountable for their aid to the enemy.

Related topics:  FreeRepublic’s You Tube Smackdown on STRIKE!

Major Hasan Dined with ‘Jihad Hobbyist’ (Terrorists hook up on the internet)

YouTube: A terrorist’s dissemination and recruiting tool

YouTube: A terrorist’s friend

H/T to Canonneer No. 4 for the link to the YouTube War article.