TikTok will prohibit content material that promotes Osama bin Laden’s 2002 letter detailing the previous al-Qaeda chief’s justifications for assaults in opposition to People, the app stated on Thursday.
Discussions of the 20-year-old letter have unfold on the platform this week within the context of debate over the Israel-Hamas battle, with some customers within the West praising its contents.
The letter, which was written after al-Qaeda’s 2001 assault on the USA that killed practically 3,000 individuals, criticized U.S. help for Israel, accused People of financing “oppression” of Palestinians and contained antisemitic feedback.
Bin Laden was killed in 2011 in Pakistan by a U.S. navy particular operations unit.
“Content material selling this letter clearly violates our guidelines on supporting any type of terrorism,” TikTok stated in a press release, including that stories that it was “trending” on the platform had been inaccurate.
No outcomes
A seek for “Letter to America” on TikTok surfaced no outcomes on Friday, with a discover that stated the phrase could also be related to “content material that violates our tips.”
Some U.S. lawmakers have known as for a ban of the Chinese language-owned app and had renewed their criticisms earlier than Thursday’s announcement.
Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer stated Wednesday on X, previously Twitter, that TikTok was “pushing pro-terrorist propaganda to affect People.”
White Home spokesperson Andrew Bates stated in a press release on Thursday: “There may be by no means a justification for spreading the repugnant, evil and antisemitic lies that the chief of al-Qaeda issued simply after committing the worst terrorist assault in American historical past.”
On Wednesday, The Guardian eliminated the complete textual content of bin Laden’s letter, which it had printed in 2002. The information outlet stated on its web site that the letter was being shared on social media with out full context, and that it will as an alternative direct readers to the information article that initially reported on the letter.
TikTok stated beforehand its advice algorithm doesn’t push sure content material to customers, and that the corporate has eliminated a whole lot of hundreds of movies since Oct. 7 for violating insurance policies in opposition to misinformation and promotion of violence.
It’s troublesome to realize a full understanding of how prevalent sure content material is on TikTok, partly as a result of exterior researchers have restricted entry to its information, stated Renee DiResta, a analysis supervisor at Stanford Web Observatory.
