YouTube and Twitter in the dock
INTERNET giants Twitter and YouTube stubbornly refused to remove Anjem Choudary’s twisted online posts and videos that inspired Britons to carry out terror attacks.
Counter terrorism police have made repeated efforts to get his sickening Twitter posts and Islamic State recruitment videos taken down after he signed an oath of allegiance to the caliphate pledging support for the terrorism group two years ago. But social media firms have resisted requests despite police demonstrating that his rants clearly promote terrorism and have encouraged scores of his followers to plot atrocities around the world.
Choudary currently has more than 32,000 followers on Twitter. His account – on which he posted his call for Buckingham Palace to become a mosque – can still be viewed online, despite requests for its removal last August and in March this year. Experts estimate that hundreds of his followers have gone to fight with Islamic State in Syria, having been radicalised by Choudary.
Yet at his trial at the Old Bailey it emerged that police have no power to force social media corporations to remove material from the internet.
The court heard Twitter and YouTube refused many requests to take down posts by Choudary and his disciple, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman. But Facebook agreed to delete their profiles.