YouTube Should Be Ashamed, Very Ashamed

So here’s a new twist for a terrorist defense: YouTube made me do it.

In Great Britain Roshanara Choudhry has been jailed for attempting to murder Member of Parliament Stephen Timms. She attacked him with a knife, stabbing him in the stomach, because he had supported the Iraq war. Choudhry now says in police interviews that she was radicalized by watching clips of sermons by al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki. She watched them on YouTube. Big deal you say? But here’s the interesting twist: Choudhry says she was pointed to the clips by YouTube after simply searching for more information on her Muslim faith. She didn’t seek them out. But once exposed to them she became enticed. Eventually she downloaded more than 100 hours of his crap.

As Choudhry tells it, she didn’t know much about her Muslim religion, but thanks to YouTube she began to “learn” by watching al-Awlaki rant on. Based on her personal history, police say that the young woman never attended a mosque or became involved with a radical group. She acted independently, and largely based on these videos.

Now I’m a firm believer in personal responsibility; YouTube did not make her do this. No excuses. But….shouldn’t YouTube take some responsibility here too? It’s not enough to just say “free speech” and we don’t take any responsibility. YouTube should be ashamed of themselves and work hard to remove this garbage from their website. They rightfully work hard to keep porn off their site. What not this filthy political porn, too?