TikTok will prohibit content that promotes Osama bin Laden’s 2002 letter detailing the former al-Qaeda leader’s justifications for attacks against Americans, the short-form video app said on Thursday.
Discussions of the 20-year-old letter have spread on the platform this week in the context of debate over the Israel-Hamas war, with some users in the West praising its content.
The letter, which was written after al-Qaeda’s attack on the US that killed about 3,000 people, criticized US support for Israel, accused Americans of financing “oppression” of Palestinians and contained anti-Semitic comments.
Photo: Reuters
Bin Laden was killed in 2011 in Pakistan by a US military special operations unit.
“Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism,” TikTok said in a statement, adding that reports that it was “trending” on the platform were inaccurate.
A search for “Letter to America” on TikTok surfaced no results on Thursday, with a notice that said the phrase might be associated with “content that violates our guidelines.”
Some US lawmakers have called for a ban of the Chinese-owned app and had renewed their criticisms before Thursday’s announcement.
US Representative Josh Gottheimer on Wednesday wrote on social media platform X that TikTok was “pushing pro-terrorist propaganda to influence Americans.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement on Thursday: “There is never a justification for spreading the repugnant, evil, and antisemitic lies that the leader of al Qaeda issued just after committing the worst terrorist attack in American history.”
On Wednesday, the Guardian removed the full text of bin Laden’s letter, which it had published in 2002. The news outlet said on its Web site that the letter was being shared on social media without full context, and that it would instead direct readers to the news article that originally reported on the letter.
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