Washington
\nTikTok will prohibit content that promotes Osama bin Laden\u2019s 2002 letter detailing the former al Qaeda leader\u2019s justifications for attacks against Americans, the short-form video app said on Thursday.
\nDiscussions 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 contents.
\nThe letter, which was written after al Qaeda\u2019s attack on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people, criticized US support for Israel, accused Americans of financing \u201coppression\u201d of Palestinians, and contained antisemitic comments.
\nBin Laden was killed in 2011 in Pakistan by a US military special operations unit.
\n\u201cContent promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism,\u201d TikTok said in a statement, adding that reports that it was \u201ctrending\u201d on the platform were inaccurate.
\nA search for \u201cLetter to America\u201d on TikTok surfaced no results on Thursday, with a notice that said the phrase may be associated with \u201ccontent that violates our guidelines.\u201d
\nSome US lawmakers have called for a ban of the Chinese-owned app and had renewed their criticisms before Thursday\u2019s announcement.
\nDemocratic Representative Josh Gottheimer said on Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter, that TikTok was \u201cpushing pro-terrorist propaganda to influence Americans.\u201d
\nWhite House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement on Thursday: \u201cThere 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.\u201d
\nOn Wednesday, The Guardian removed the full text of bin Laden\u2019s letter, which it had published in 2002. The news outlet said on its website 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.
\nTikTok said previously its recommendation algorithm does not push certain content to users, and that the company has removed hundreds of thousands of videos since Oct. 7 for violating policies against misinformation and promotion of violence.
\nIt is difficult to gain a full understanding of how prevalent certain content is on TikTok, partly because external researchers have limited access to its data, said Renee DiResta, a research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington TikTok will prohibit content that promotes Osama bin Laden\u2019s 2002 letter detailing the former al Qaeda leader\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-368685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n