YouTube lets vile st ab vest film stay online ‘because it enhances safety’
But the Home Secret ary insists videos ‘encourage extremists to commit acts of violence’
WEB giant YouTube has defied calls to take down a sickening video showing how to penetrate a stab vest because it claims it will enhance safety.
The astonishing refusal comes after Home Secretary Amber Rudd revealed a terror plot had been inspired by online videos showing how to attack someone who is wearing a stab vest.
The YouTube clip shows how to plunge a knife through a protective vest similar to the one worn by Westminster terror victim PC Keith Palmer.
In April, The Mail on Sunday exposed how the video was available little more than a week after terrorist Khalid Masood mounted the pavement in a hired car in March – killing three people plus a fourth who died two weeks later – before murdering PC Palmer.
After the MoS alerted YouTube owners Google, the video was removed. But just two weeks later the footage was reposted under a slightly different name on YouTube.
And now the company is refusing to remove it, because the filmmaker says he is only exposing safety weaknesses.
Last night, a YouTube spokeswoman said: ‘ Alongside our campaign to prevent abuse of our platform by those that seek to do harm, we must also protect the freedoms of people who don’t, and where content does not cross the line and is clear in its intention, it stays up.’ On a visit to the US last week to rally support for her campaign to combat extremist online content, Ms Rudd revealed: ‘This summer we managed to disrupt a plot that involved an individual learning how to get through a stab vest from online videos.
‘Luckily he was caught before he was able to fulfil this terrible vision but it was instruc- tive to know where he got his information from.’ Last night, Rudd told the MoS: ‘It is precisely videos of this nature that can encourage British extremists to commit acts of violence. The internet must not be used as a platform for material that inspires terrorism.’
Yvette Cooper, Labour MP and chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: ‘Google needs to act to stop videos which clearly demonstrate how to carry out violent attacks being available on their platforms. How many times do we have to say the same thing before they act?
‘Given this is one of the biggest and richest companies in the world there is no excuse for this material not to be speedily identified and removed.’
The film, Reupload: The Forbidden ‘Stab Proof Vest’ Video, is made by German weapons obsessive Jörg Sprave. Asked yesterday whether it was responsible of him to repost the video, he replied: ‘ Yes. My video does not show how to stab through a well-made vest, like the models issued to the police.
‘It shows how you can pierce a fairly cheap vest and clearly shows this popular product does not offer sufficient protection.’
‘There is no excuse for this material’