Why are TikToks so Popular? The 2002 Letter to America, Osama Bin Laden, and the Anti–China Agenda
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 by TikTok creators in light of bin Laden’s criticism of the US government’s support of Israel.
One thing became apparent when researchers looked at the data on how widespread the bin Laden content had been on TikTok: the videos were not even a blip on the radar.
There were a lot of videos using the hashtags. #lettertoamerica drew around 2 million views by Wednesday, according to TikTok, a platform with an estimated 1.6 billion monthly active users. For comparison, a recent 24-hour period on the platform had 200 million videos using #GymTok and #travel videos racked up 137 million.
The videos sparked moral panic among lawmakers and other watchers because of the belief that TikTok was encouraging young people to engage in acts of terrorism.
Holt said the story speaks to how susceptible everyone is to information disorder and suggested things, and how far there still is to go in boosting social media literacy. “Even those who might consider themselves people trying to speak truth against falsehoods are not immune. Next year’s election cycle will 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. The letter was used by posters to critique US foreign policy. 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, despite some questioning the virality of these posts as conversations about these TikToks exploded on Thursday evening.
The phenomenon’s origin story is murky, but so far does not have the markings of a coordinated campaign, as stated by a research fellow with the Accelerationism Research Consortium.
I believe that anonymous meme pages are more likely to be utilized on TikTok. 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. “So in short, we don’t know for sure.”
The Guardian and CrowdTangle Reveals the Terrorist Killer: Why We Shouldn’t Let Them Smell Like Bin Laden
The Guardian published a transcript of the letter in 2002, and it rose to the top of most-viewed stories. A spokesman for the paper said that it was taken down due to the fact that it had been shared widely on social media.
That decision fueled online conspiracies about whether there was concerted effort underway to censor the document from the Internet. Some researchers argue that the terrorist leader’s 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 – this is the man some TikTok fools chose to glorify. Add more context.
The letter’s re-appearance was a cause for celebration for supporters of al-Qaeda. One user on the extremist forums wrote that they hoped you were seeing the storm on social media. We should post more and more content.”
Knowing precisely how popular certain content is on TikTok has become increasing challenging, since outside researchers have limited access to the platform’s internal data. That is true of other sites too. The platform of boxing out independent review of the patterns and trends on social media platforms is something that has been done before, but it has been done by a different person, like Elon Musk.
“We are stuck in a world where it’s very hard to verify trends on either platform,” said Brandon Silverman, the ex-CEO of CrowdTangle.
“TikTok is an espionage tool and a propaganda machine for the Communists. First pro-Hamas propaganda, now bin Laden?” The senator from Missouri wrote on the website on Thursday night. “The CCP probably can’t believe we’re letting them get away with it. Ban TikTok.”
President of Turning Point USA boosted conspiracy about public education. “Why is everyone shocked [that] a generation taught to hate America would embrace Osama Bin Laden?” Kirk was writing on Telegram.
One of his followers replied: “Not shocked. We as a whole let this crap happen in our ‘higher’ education. We did not pay attention to the way the marxists infiltrated and thought it was just going to go away. Not anymore!
TikTok, ISIS, and the 9/11 Post-September 11th Phenomenon: A View from a Non-Influencial Source
The issue is leading to calls for TikTok to be banned from being 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. Some people think 9/11 is a inside job, according to Jordan Sather. A follower of Jack Posobiec wrote in response to the link he shared about the TikTok trend, that Bin Laden was an Israeli puppet and was protected in hiding.