The letter gained significant traction on Wednesday evening, prompting the platforms to act.
The letter was being widely read and positively reacted to on TikTok, a platform linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with users posting under the hashtag #LetterToAmerica, as reported by journalist Christina Buttons on X, formerly known as Twitter. Instagram responded by concealing the hashtag, while TikTok declared that such content contravenes its regulations against endorsing terrorism, leading to the removal of the hashtag on Thursday.
November 18, 2023
A spokesperson for TikTok, in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation, said, "Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism. We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform. 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."
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According to Reuters, searches for the letter on the platform now yield no results. Videos encouraging people to read the letter or expressing agreement with bin Laden's views on Israel and the U.S. garnered thousands of views on social media, as per Semafor. Both TikTok and Instagram have witnessed similar content on their platforms, including Instagram users sharing posts from TikTok.
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TikTok has recently come under fire for the spread of anti-Israel content during the Israel-Hamas War and its ties to the CCP. The platform, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, has an internal CCP committee.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida posted on X, "Now trending on social media (especially TikTok) people saying that after reading Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America,’ they now understand terrorism is a legitimate method of resistance against ‘oppression’ and America deserved to be attacked on 9/11."
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The Guardian, a media outlet, removed the letter on Wednesday, which had been available on the site since its publication on November 24, 2002.
Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011.
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