Police: Sharing video is a crime

Scotland Yard has warned internet users they could be arrested under terrorism legislation if they viewed or shared the video of James Foley’s murder, as Twitter and YouTube attempted to remove all trace of the footage from the web.

YouTube is taking action to remove any video of Foley’s murder on its site and to close accounts belonging to terrorist organisations, it said yesterday.

The company, part of Google, spoke after a campaign was launched on Twitter encouraging users not to share videos of the brutal killing by the Islamic State (IS), formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis).