Reports of a commitment by YouTube to rid its service of videos promoting the global jihad notwithstanding, a recently conducted random sample of 100 links to such videos found that 100% of the videos were still available for download, even though they had been online for quite awhile. The videos were also relatively popular, with 100 files being viewed a total of one million times.

Method: a list of 450 links was generated using Arabic keywords as proxy variables for global jihad videos. Keywords were those that would seem to clearly indicate affiliation with or support of global jihad, including the Arabic forms of "al-Qaida", "al-Qaida in Iraq", "mujahedin", "shaheed", "istishahad", along with others. These keywords were entered into YouTube's search function. 100 of the resulting links were then selected using a systematic random method, with every 4th link selected. This resulted in 100 links plus 12 alternate links for replacement of videos that were false positives (i.e. not jihad videos, thus Hizballah or Fatah videos were replaced with alternates), or that had been removed for terms of service violations.

Total number of views and views per day were also examined.

To provide some contrast or perspective, the following is the data for videos associated with los cholos, Latino street gangs such as the Norteños and Sureños. The data was collected using the same methodology.

By way of conclusion, note that gang violence and terrorism differ markedly in their effect on society, despite some obvious similarities between the perpetrators. This is mostly because gang violence tends to occur in and victimize already isolated and marginalized communities. They also differ markedly in terms of the associated lifestyle or culture. It seems safe to suggest that to the typical adolescent male, the life of the gangsta, with the attendant wine, women, and song (aka beer, bitches, and hip-hop) is likely to be much more appealing than the jihadi alternative of tea, TATP, and nasheeds.

* The reason cited for the removal of these videos was violation of copyright.