TikTok said Thursday it is "proactively and aggressively" removing videos on its platform that promote Osama bin Laden's "Letter to America," which justified his reasons behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Dozens of TikTok users posted videos that supported some of bin Laden's views and urged others to read it. The letter, first published in 2002 by The Guardian newspaper when the terror mastermind was still alive, contains bin Laden's complaints about the involvement of Western nations in Muslim countries and criticizes U.S. support for Israel. The letter appears to be trending as many are criticizing U.S. support for Israel's war against Hamas terrorists.
"Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism," TikTok posted Thursday on X. The company is owned by ByteDance, which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
"We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform," the company wrote. "The number of videos on TikTok is small and reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate. This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared across multiple platforms and the media."
CNN reported videos on the topic generated at least 14 million views by Thursday afternoon.
"Over the past 24 hours, thousands of TikToks [at least] have been posted where people share how they just read bin Laden's infamous "Letter to America," in which he explained why he attacked the United States," the writer Yashir Ali posted on X, with a compilation of several of the TikTok videos. "Many of them — and I have watched a lot — say it has made them reevaluate their perspective on how what is often labeled as terrorism can be a legitimate form of resistance to a hostile power."
Ali's post had been viewed 30.3 million times by Thursday afternoon, with at least 22,000 likes and 12,000 reposts.
The Pew Research Center reported Wednesday that 32% of U.S. adults aged 18-29 get their news regularly on TikTok, which said in March it is used by 150 million Americans.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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