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TikTok will prohibit content material that promotes Osama bin Laden’s 2002 letter detailing the previous al Qaeda chief’s justifications for assaults towards Americans, the short-form video app mentioned 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 struggle, with some customers within the West praising its contents.
The letter, which was written after al Qaeda’s assault on the United States that killed almost 3,000 folks, criticised US help for Israel, accused Americans of financing “oppression” of Palestinians, and contained antisemitic feedback. Bin Laden was killed in 2011 in Pakistan by a US navy particular operations unit.
“Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism,” TikTok mentioned in an announcement, including that studies that it was “trending” on the platform had been inaccurate.
A seek for “Letter to America” on TikTok surfaced no outcomes on Thursday, with a discover that mentioned the phrase could also be related to “content that violates our guidelines.”
Some US lawmakers have referred to as for a ban of the Chinese-owned app and had renewed their criticisms earlier than Thursday’s announcement.
Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer mentioned on Wednesday on X, previously Twitter, that TikTok was “pushing pro-terrorist propaganda to influence Americans.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates mentioned in an announcement on Thursday: “There 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.”
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On Wednesday, The Guardian eliminated the total textual content of bin Laden’s letter, which it had revealed in 2002. The information outlet mentioned 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 mentioned beforehand its suggestion algorithm doesn’t push sure content material to customers, and that the corporate has eliminated lots of of hundreds of movies since Oct. 7 for violating insurance policies towards misinformation and promotion of violence.
It is 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, mentioned Renee DiResta, a analysis supervisor at Stanford Internet Observatory.
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