The popular video-hosting website LiveLeak announced Thursday it will ban users from posting footage of Islamic State beheadings.

LiveLeak, known for hosting grisly, primary-source material unavailable at traditional news sites, made the decision after receiving an explosion in traffic as Internet users sought footage of the jihadi group beheading American journalist James Foley.

A video of Foley’s murder was posted online Tuesday, but YouTube deleted it and demand for the LiveLeak version soared.

The video, believed to be filmed in eastern Syria, shows the journalist stoically reading a statement that blames his death on U.S. bombing raids in northern Iraq before he's killed by a knife-wielding fanatic. The full decapitation process isn’t shown.

Since its debut, the video inspired a media debate about whether such footage should be shown at all, and the British government warned viewing Islamic State videos may be a crime.

"We would like to remind the public that viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material within the U.K. may constitute an offence under terrorism legislation,” London’s Metropolitan Police Service said in a statement.

Hayden Hewitt, a co-founder of LiveLeak who lives in the U.K., tells U.S. News the site's new policy isn’t a response to Scotland Yard's warning.

“Showing the videos in the context we do would have been perfectly within the law as we would never allow a user to frame them in a manner which would be seen as supportive of the IS cause," he says. "Add to that LiveLeak is not a U.K.-based company [and] British law doesn't really affect us in a manner that would shape policy."

The site is officially based in the U.S.

Hewitt says the decision was instead guided by “our own concerns regarding this particular slickly presented style of recruitment video and what we believed was best for the site overall.”

A statement explaining LiveLeak's new policy says co-founders feared there would be a wave of Islamic State beheading videos. In the Foley video the executioner threatens another American journalist, Steven Sotloff, with death and the site says there are rumors of "hostage stockpiling" for future killings.

"Nothing changes about them, they're still relentlessly grim and no deeper insight will be offered by descending into some grotesque 'beheading of the week' scenario," the site's statement says.

Many LiveLeak users raged in the comment section of the post. Several said it was wrong to censor newsworthy horrors and others pointed out that footage of the Islamic State slaughtering Iraqis and Syrians was previously tolerated.

“I agree that beheadings are terrible things. However it is funny that it was all fun and games until some American white guy got the short end of the stick,” one user wrote.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says market forces may nullify the Web-wide impact of LiveLeak’s decision.

“In most instances, ‘demand tends to create supply,’” Miron tells U.S. News. “If a lot of people want to watch these, it’s likely someone will create” a platform to host future Islamic State beheading videos.

But, Miron adds, that’s not always the case and “perhaps LiveLeak’s decision will nudge the social norm away from ‘acceptance of’ or ‘interest in’ such videos.”

“I would bet that a new supplier emerges,” Miron says. “But I would not bet all that much!”

There are other less-famous sites that host uncensored footage of murders and war crimes, though often alongside more vulgar content.

Hewitt concedes people who want to watch future beheading videos may go elsewhere.

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“I assume [LiveLeak users] already visit all manner of sites who provide content we don't and I can't see this being any different,” he says. “We're under no illusions our choice will have an affect on who sees the video or any effect on the distribution of them. We've just done what we think was the right thing to do.”