And archive.org has their back.
During a recent week I collected 365 pages of discussions from 9 of the more important forums representing the global jihad and al-Qa`ida. Figure one shows the results (the names of the sites have been encoded to protect the guilty):
Figure 1.
Internet Archive (IA) is clearly the favorite of the al-Qa`ida operatives tasked with making various multimedia files available for download by the movement's supporters and foot soldiers.
Of course this is one week's data only. I hope to revisit the issue in the future, and perhaps also delve into previous collections of files, to see how this set of data compares to others.
If I were to venture a guess, it would be that while the overall volume of files may change from week to week, the degree to which Internet Archive is favored over YouTube will remain fairly constant.
If I wanted to have an impact on al-Qa`ida's efforts to, as the Quran says, "Incite the Believers", I would target the more popular Internet Archive, rather than YouTube - at least at present.
A note regarding Internet Archive's legal defense: They say they are merely a library. But libraries have special collections, which for various reasons they restrict access to. The problem here is not with Internet Archive preserving al-Qa`ida's AGITPROP, but rather with IA's insistence on providing jihadists with free and unfettered access to IA's collection of files.
Finally, I have not had the opportunity to look at each of these files. Some are a single file that has been uploaded to multiple accounts, some are a file that has been uploaded in multiple formats, most are videos, some are audio files, and there are a few graphics. The purpose here is to examine the relative popularity of these two services, YouTube and Internet Archive, with al-Qa`ida operatives generally. As we know, it is the operatives who upload the files, while it is both operatives and aspiring jihadists, along with others, who download the files.
Posted on 24 July 2008 @ 20:47