According to a shocking report from The New York Post, influencers on the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok are reacting to a letter written by Osama bin Laden in 2002. The influencers, who appear to be mostly women, sympathize with bin Laden and agree that terrorism is a legitimate form of resistance.
From The New York Post:
In the letter, bin Laden claimed that he orchestrated the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center that killed nearly 3,000 Americans because the US “attacked us in Palestine.”
Breaking AlertsDon't miss the stories that matter.Get Sean's breaking news alerts — free, direct to your inbox.The terrorist also described the creation of Israel as a “crime which must be erased.”
The Guardian, which had published the full text of the letter in 2002, pulled down the letter on Wednesday, citing the fact in a statement that it was being “widely shared on social media without the full context. Therefore we have decided to take it down and direct readers to the news article that originally contextualized it instead.”
Among the TikTok users promoting the letter was Lynette Adkins — a social-media influencer who has been profiled in the Los Angeles Times.
In the video, which has received nearly 100,000 likes and more than 5,500 comments since it was posted on Wednesday, Adkins told her followers to “stop what they’re doing right now and go read a letter to America.”
Adkins followed up with several other posts, including one in which she discussed “three movies to watch after you’ve read ‘a letter to America’” and another in which she reacted to The Guardian taking down the text and declared “America is losing the PR war bad.”
Watch the post below:
https://www.tiktok.com/@lynetteadkins/video/7301782729035730219
“The Guardian taking that post down is actually one of the worst things that they could’ve done. I don’t know who was behind it or what the reasoning was, but I feel like it literally just confirmed everything that we read in the letter,” Adkins said.
Lawmakers were swift to condemn the trend.
“These people are sympathizing with Osama bin Laden – the terrorist responsible for 9/11 and thousands of American deaths,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said. “TikTok must be banned or sold to an American company.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) described TikTok as “a geyser of terrorist propaganda – and the most effective surveillance tool for a foreign government ever invented.”
TikTok is a geyser of terrorist propaganda – and the most effective surveillance tool for a foreign government ever invented https://t.co/AD2PCh7QOL
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) November 16, 2023
“Now trending on social media (especially TikTok) people saying that after reading Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America,’ they now understand terrorism is a legitimate method of resistance against ‘oppression’ and America deserved to be attacked of 9/11,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio said.
Full story over at The New York Post:
TikTok shredded as Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ gets viral praise: ‘Terrorist propaganda’ https://t.co/hPxWwmuvyt pic.twitter.com/LKFHNdumoY
— New York Post (@nypost) November 16, 2023
