TikTok Will Ban Viral Videos Spreading Bin Laden's 'Letter to America'
(Baonghean.vn) - On November 16, short-form video application TikTok said it would ban content that spreads Osama bin Laden's 2002 letter, detailing the former al Qaeda leader's justifications for attacks on Americans.
Discussions about the letter written more than 20 years ago have spread on the TikTok platform this week, amid debate over the Israel-Hamas war, and some users in the West are praising its contents.
The letter, written after al Qaeda's attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people, criticized US support for Israel, accused Americans of funding the "oppression" of Palestinians and contained anti-Semitic comments.
Bin Laden was killed by US military special forces in 2011 in Pakistan.
“The content circulating this letter clearly violates our rules against supporting any form of terrorism,” TikTok said in a statement, adding that reports that the content was “trending” on the platform were inaccurate.
A search for “Letter to America” on TikTok returned no results on November 16, with a message saying the phrase may be associated with “content that violates our guidelines.”
Several US lawmakers had called for a ban on the Chinese-owned app and continued to criticize it before the announcement on November 16.
Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer said on November 15 on X, formerly Twitter, that TikTok was “promoting terrorist propaganda to influence Americans.”
"There is no justification for spreading the vile, vile, and anti-Semitic lies that al Qaeda's leader spread in the immediate aftermath of the most horrific terrorist attack in American history," White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement on November 16.
On November 15, The Guardian removed the entire text of bin Laden's 2002 letter. The news outlet said on its website that the letter was being shared on social media without full context and instead directed readers to the original article reporting the letter.
TikTok has previously said its recommendation algorithm does not push certain content to users, and the company has removed hundreds of thousands of videos since October 7 for violating its policies against misinformation and glorification of violence.
Renee DiResta, research director at the Stanford Internet Observatory, said it's difficult to fully understand how popular certain content is on TikTok, in part because outside researchers have only limited access to its data.
