Nikki Haley and other top Republicans have called for a ban on the Chinese-owned social media site
After young social media users began sharing and praising a 2002 letter by Osama bin Laden, filled with anti-Semitism, top Republicans have called for a ban.
Top Republicans, including 2024 presidential aspirant Nikki Haley, have demanded TikTok be banned after Osama bin Laden’s 2002 ‘Letter to America’, in which the dead terrorist justified orchestrating the September 11, 2001, attacks, was shared millions of times on social media.
Hundreds of mainly young TikTok users began posting videos on the Chinese-owned social media platform that praised a 2002 bin Laden document on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), which justified the terrorist attacks on the US that killed around 3,000 people in part by US support for Israel, fuelling a resurgence in calls for the app to be outlawed.
Haley, the former South Carolina governor, increasingly seen as the GOP’s best alternative to Donald Trump for the party’s presidential nomination, ramped up earlier criticism of the popular social media platform, calling for a ban.
“Thousands of TikTok users are siding with Osama bin Laden who murdered 3000 Americans,” she said in a statement on social media. “This is a prime example of how our foreign enemies poison social media to advance their evil agenda … Stop giving the Chinese Communist Party the ability to influence Americans.”
Sharing of the document comes amid a rise in anti-Semitism and pro-Palestinian protests around the world in the wake of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel last month, which left thousands dead, and Israel’s subsequent military action to destroy Hamas in Gaza.
Over the past 24 hours, thousands of TikToks (at least) have been posted where people share how they just read Bin Laden’s infamous "Letter to America," in which he explained why he attacked the United States.
— Yashar Ali 😠(@yashar) November 16, 2023
The TikToks are from people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and… pic.twitter.com/EwjiGtFEE3
A social media influencer Lynette Adkins urged her millions of followers to “stop what they’re doing right now and go read a letter to America”, which garnered thousands of ‘likes’ and promotion by other users. “Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts.
Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy,” bin Laden wrote in the letter, which is packed with anti-Semitism.
Republican congressman Mike Gallagher, who chairs the select committee in the House of Representatives on the Chinese Communist Party, slammed those who shared the letter as “massive idiots.”
“For someone on TikTok to somehow suggest this is America’s fault or that bin Laden, who killed thousands of innocent Americans, was right is absolutely disgusting and further evidence that we need to ban TikTok or force a sale before a Chinese-controlled app, before the Chinese Communist Party, checkmates the free world by controlling the dominant media platform in America,” Mr. Gallagher said on Thursday (Friday AEDT).
Since Donald Trump as president proposed a ban on TikTok in 2020, amid fears the application was being used to sow discord among American youth, propagate anti-American propaganda and support espionage activities, more political figures have come to take a negative view of the platform, which has roughly 100 million users in the US.
In a statement on social media, TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based internet technology company ByteDance, said sharing of the letter had violated its terms of service.
“We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform,” the company said. The Guardian, which held a copy of the letter on its website, deleted the letter on Wednesday, amid concern it was fuelling antisemitism, saying it was being “taken out of context.”
According to a recent Pew Research survey, more than 30 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds, and 15 per cent of those aged 30 to 49, in the US receive their news via TikTok, more than double the share of a few years ago.
Calls for a ban will renew focus on the RESTRICT Act, which stands for Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology, a bill with bipartisan support introduced into Congress in March that would give US authorities the power to ban social media platforms that allowed any foreign adversary to “pose a risk to national security.”
More than 30 US states have banned the use of the application on government-owned laptops and mobile phones. Montana in May became the first state to ban it outright, by making provision of the application illegal by app providers in the small western state of around 1 million people.
Senator Mark Warner, the top Democratic sponsor of the RESTRICT Act, speaking on Fox Business condemned the “abhorrent ridiculous views” of those who spread the letter and condemned TikTok for being slow to remove the posts on its site.
“We don’t have any guardrails on any social media; this could have spread as well on Facebook or Twitter,” he said, being careful not to single out TikTok specifically and highlighting potential threats from similar applications based on Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.
“The magic of TikTok … is the algorithm which knows what you like before you know what you like, and that is a very powerful tool; the Chinese have said they’d rather shut down TikTok than have it removed to another country,” he added.
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