By SUDHIN THANAWALA and BRIAN MELLEY
An anti-Muslim film that sparked violence in the Middle East and death threats to actors is back up on YouTube after a federal appeals court ruled the website should not have been forced to take it down.
The roughly 14-minute trailer for “Innocence of Muslims” was posted by a YouTube user on Tuesday. YouTube is owned by Google.
Google declined comment,
Monday’s court ruling by an 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal cleared the way for YouTube to remove the filters that were blocking users from posting the clip on its site.
The panel said a previous decision by a smaller panel of the same court ordering Google to take the film down gave “short shrift” to the First Amendment.
