White House Condemns TikTok Videos Sympathizing With Osama bin Laden

The White House on Thursday denounced a series of TikTok videos making the rounds online where users express sympathy with a 20-year old letter from Osama bin Laden attempting to justify the Sept. 11 terror attacks. 

In the letter, bin Laden – the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who died in 2011– used the United States’ support of Israel and its policies in Palestinian territories as part of the justification for one of the deadliest attacks in U.S. history. Now TikTok users have resurfaced the letter as the war in Gaza intensifies between Israel and Hamas, saying it has changed their perspective of the U.S. government, which has staunchly backed Israel as thousands of Palestinians have died in the conflict. 

White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Thursday that “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 – highlighting them as his direct motivation for murdering 2,977 innocent Americans.”

“And no one should ever insult the 2,977 American families still mourning loved ones by associating themselves with vile words of Osama bin Laden,” Bates added. 

“Particularly now, at a time of rising antisemitic violence in the world, and just after Hamas terrorists carried out the worst slaughter of the Jewish people since the Holocaust in the name of the same conspiracy theories,” the White House spokesman continued. “Like President Biden said this year in remembrance of the Americans who lost their lives because of Osama bin Laden, “it’s more important now than ever that we come together” against a rising tide of hatred and extremism.” 

TikTok also weighed in on Thursday, saying that “content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism.” 

“We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform,” the social media company said in a statement. “The number of videos on TikTok is small and reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate.”