The same year YouTube was created, an American-born Islamic cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki became radicalized and moved to Yemen. Charismatic and English-speaking, he began uploading his Quranic lectures to the platform, accumulating millions of views across a 700-video library. Although there was no explicit violence portrayed in the clips of the soft-spoken, bespectacled al-Awlaki, his words promoted violence.
