A SICKENING trend on Tiktok sees young influencers reading out Osama bin Laden’s notorious “Letter to America”.
The hate-filled text details the twisted ideology behind the 9/11 attacks and his desire to wipe Israel off the map.
GettyOsama bin Laden, the late al-Qaeda leader and mastermind behind the 2001 Twin Towers attacks on America[/caption]
One TikTok user said she would ‘never look at life the same’ in a disturbing video
Another woman said she thought Bin Laden was ‘holding America accountable’ after reading the terrorist leader’s sick manifesto
Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden issued the 4,000-word manifesto in 2002 laying out his hatred of the West.
The terror chief tried to justify the horrific Twin Towers attack on the US on September 11, 2001.
Among a long list of grievances, it also railed against Israel and made a chilling demand for the Jewish state to be destroyed.
Now the despicable racist rant is finding a new audience among millions of impressionable social media users in the wake of the Gaza conflict.
Many influencers – often American – have been posting clips on TikTok where they discuss the manifesto and spread dangerous conspiracies.
The most watched clip, with over a million views, is a scrolling video of the PDF for people to read.
Another, with thousands of interactions, involves one woman’s “take” on the terror rant.
She says: “So I just read a Letter to America.
“And I will never look at life the same. I will never look at this country the same…please read it.”
Another user’s video discussing the letter was captioned: “I recommend everyone read it and form your own opinions.”
After reading out sections from the twisted manifesto she tells viewers she no longer believes America killed Osama Bin Laden in response to the terror attacks of 9/11, but instead for “trying to open America’s eyes”.
She also describes Bin Laden as “holding America accountable”.
An outraged viewer commented underneath: “And you think this justifies the attack on 9/11? They are terrorists”.
Another countered: “There are literally so many other ways to promote Palestinian liberation than boosting Bin Laden.
“It hurts the cause.”
One shocked TikTok user said: “I read it, my blood ran cold.”
The trend has faced a backlash on social media amid questions over how TikTok content is moderated.
One Twitter/X user called the trend “highly disturbing” and another said it was “sickening.”
Another said the letter was “full of anti antisemitism, homophobia, sexism, and lies”.
It comes as left-wing newspaper The Guardian – which had posted the manifesto in full letter on its website years ago – deleted it on Wednesday.
A statement now reads: “This page previously displayed a document containing, in translation, the full text of Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to the American people,’ as reported in the Observer on Sunday 24 November 2002.
“The document, which was published here on the same day, was removed on 15 November 2023.”
A Guardian spokesperson told The Sun: “The transcript published on our website 20 years ago has been 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 contextualised it instead.”
The Sun has reached out to TikTok for comment.
The Chinese-owned platform claims it does not allow hate speech.
Its policy states: “TikTok is a diverse and inclusive community that has no tolerance for discrimination.
“We do not permit content that contains hate speech or involves hateful behavior, and we remove it from our platform.
“We ban accounts and/or users that engage in severe or multiple hate speech violations or that are associated with hate speech off the TikTok platform.
“We define hate speech or behavior as content that attacks, threatens, incites violence against, or otherwise dehumanizes an individual or a group on the basis of the following protected attributes: Race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, serious disease, disability and immigration status.”
The company also states that content which “supports any hateful ideology (e.g., white supremacy, misogyny, anti-LGBTQ, antisemitism)”, should not be posted on the app.
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