The videos on TikTok feature Osama bin Laden

What Has Happened on TikTok in the Two Days of Osama Bin Laden’s “Letter to America”?

TikTok says it has been “aggressively removing” hundreds of videos discussing a manifesto Osama bin Laden wrote in 2002 titled “Letter to America,” which somewhat mysteriously resurfaced on the platform in recent days.

The document was shared because of bin Laden’s criticism of the U.S. government’s involvement in the Middle East and support of Israel.

But as social media researchers pored over publicly available data on just how widespread the bin Laden content has been on TikTok, one thing became clear: the videos do not appear to have ever gone viral.

There were fewer than 300 videos using the hashtag The #lettertoamerica received more than two million views by Wednesday, according to a platform with over one billion monthly active users. The platform had 200 million videos with the #gym tok and 137 million with the travel videos.

The frenzy over the videos prompted moral panic among lawmakers and other observers over the idea that TikTok was radicalizing young people and amplifying the writing of a terrorist, according to Jared Holt, senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

Holt toldNPR that the story spoke to how much still needed to be done in boosting social media literacy and making everyone susceptible to information disorder and suggestion. “Even those who might consider themselves people trying to speak truth against falsehoods are not immune. Next year’s election cycle is sure to be gasoline on these longstanding faults.”

A number of users have posted TikToks in recent days that share parts of Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America,” where the deceased al Qaeda leader said the attacks on September 11, 2001, were justified. Posters used it to critique US foreign policy and have claimed that the letter changed their perspective. But while some have questioned the actual virality of these posts as conversations about these TikToks exploded on Thursday evening, far-right lawmakers and influencers have used the renewed interest in bin Laden to spread conspiracy theories about 9/11 and push their own anti-China agenda.

The origin story of the phenomenon is murky, but so far it doesn’t seem to have the fingerprints of a coordinated campaign undertaken by a single hostile actor, said Abbie Richards, a research fellow with the Accelerationism Research Consortium.

“My understanding is that coordinated inauthentic behavior on TikTok is more likely to utilize anonymous meme pages than influencers. It’s easier, lower cost, and lower risk,” Richards wrote on X, adding that her analysis is based on a preliminary understanding of the situation. We don’t know for sure.

The Guardian Sentiment to TikTok: Where are we going? Why is the terrorist leader’s incendiary writings published so publicly?

The letter went to the top of the most-viewed stories at The Guardian, leading the site to take it down. A spokesman for the paper said it was taken down since it had been “widely shared on social media without the full context.”

That decision fueled online conspiracies about whether there was concerted effort underway to censor the document from the Internet. It also led to pushback from some researchers, who argued that the terrorist leader’s incendiary writing should remain published to expose it for what it is.

“Don’t turn the long-public ravings of a terrorist into forbidden knowledge, something people feel excited to go rediscover,” said Renée DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory in a post on Threads. Let people read the murderer’s demands, it is the man who TikTok fools chose to honor. Add more context.”

On forums used by supporters of al-Qaeda, the letter’s re-appearance was cause for celebration. SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist organizations, noted that one user on the extremist forums wrote: “I hope you all are seeing ongoing storm on Social Media. … There should be more content on the site.

It has become more challenging to understand how popular certain content is on TikTok due to the lack of access to the platform’s internal data. That is also true of other sites. The platforms of boxing out independent reviews of patterns and trends on social media platforms have been set in motion by Musk’s removal of researchers’ ability to analyze the site’s metrics.

“So, we’re stuck in a world where it’s hard to verify trends on any platform and that’s where we are,” said Brandon Silverman, who was the former CEO of CrowdTangle.

The Communists use tug tok as an espionage tool. Bin Laden is the first pro-Hamas propaganda. On Thursday night, Josh Hawley wrote on X, which was formerly known asTwitter. The CCP can’t believe we’re letting them escape. Ban TikTok.

Kirk is the president of Turning Point USA and he has supported conspiracy theories about public education. “Why is everyone shocked [that] a generation taught to hate America would embrace Osama Bin Laden?” Kirk wrote on Telegram.

One of his followers replied: “Not shocked. We let this happen in our education. We didn’t care what the marxists did, we thought it was just going to go away. Not anymore!”

TikTok and the 9/11 Terrorism: Why is 9/11 an Insider Job for the CIA and Mossad?

The issue has also led to renewed calls for TikTok to be banned by right-wing lawmakers who have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that TikTok is used by the Chinese government to spy on US citizens.

On Telegram, a number of QAnon influencers and far-right figures used the renewed interest in the al Qaeda leader to boost conspiracy theories around the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A lot of grown ups still don’t question 9/11 being an inside job, according to Jordan Sather. “The CIA and Mossad perpetrated 911,” a follower of right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec wrote in response to a link Posobiec shared about the TikTok trend, adding: “Bin Laden was their MKUltra puppet and was protected in hiding.”