Don’t Shut Down the Internet’s Biggest Jihadist Archive

This story was updated at 1:40 p.m. ET on December 10, 2018.

If you discover that your neighbor—a decent guy and a known history buff—maintains a small collection of Nazi memorabilia, you might not think less of him, especially if his record of tolerance and anti-fascism is beyond reproach. Now imagine that he maintains not a small collection but the largest in the world, in private or public hands. He lets anyone examine it, including actual Nazis, without asking for a name or a reason. How big does the collection have to get before you start murmuring with the neighbors, and stop inviting him to cookouts and seders?

Last month, the British government expressed official concern look genteel. It is one thing to publish a cartoon that calls for the extinction of one’s fellow citizens, and another to publish a video that shows one of those citizens retching in the gas chamber at the moment of her death. Many of the videos are from the Islamic State, and some contain scenes considerably more nauseating than even this. Critics believe it serves terrorists; jihadists circulate links to the site’s videos long after YouTube and Facebook have deleted them.