Us embassy Kabul evacuation
Miles Routledge appears to have deleted footage showing him on an evacuation plane.
Rahmat Gul/AP Images
  • Miles Routledge, the student who traveled to Afghanistan, appeared to delete evacuation footage.
  • Routledge made waves online for traveling to the Taliban-controlled nation.
  • People criticized Routledge for taking an evacuation spot that could have gone to an Afghani.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The 21-year-old British student Miles Routledge, who went viral online after posting on the fringe message board 4chan about traveling to Afghanistan while the Taliban overtook the country, has appeared to delete social media posts following backlash.

As Insider previously reported, Routledge, who has been referred to online as "Lord Miles" after a 4chan account believed to belong to the student claimed to have purchased a fake lordship, said he traveled on Friday to Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, which the Taliban captured over the weekend.

He left the country on a British military plane on Tuesday and has faced criticism online for the decision to go to Afghanistan amid its turmoil for the sake of "adventure," he said in an interview with Input Magazine.

Routledge has since appeared to delete one video and every written post from his Facebook page, according to The Independent. As of Wednesday afternoon, the page believed to belong to Routledge still features images that appear to show Routledge.

Routledge wrote about his situation in Afghanistan across numerous Facebook updates, all of which appear to have been deleted, The Independent reported. He also reportedly deleted footage from his alleged Facebook account purporting to show the scene of his evacuation.

In the 17-second video, which numerous accounts have reshared on Twitter, someone who appears to be Routledge reveals a huge aircraft full of people packed together. Insider was unable to view the video when it was reportedly on his Facebook channel.

Routledge previously told Insider that "the evacuation took ages and was very up in the air," although "many people were in good spirits like myself… they were tired but glad to be out," he said.

On Twitter, several detractors criticized Routledge for acting out of a sense of privilege and taking an escape opportunity that otherwise could have gone to an Afghani citizen. In Kabul, many people who want to leave the state in the face of Taliban rule remain stuck, Insider reported.

In a tweet that garnered over 400 likes and 100 retweets, the journalist Julien Hoez called Routledge "spoilt" and accused him of taking "a slot that a far less privileged Afghan citizen could have used to escape."

"I increasingly struggle to derive even wry enjoyment from the story of 'Lord Miles' Miles Routledge," another user tweeted. "He went to glibly tool around an active warzone and had to be babied by the army."

Routledge did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment regarding the plane footage.

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