Did bin Laden ‘Letter to America’ Really go viral on tiktok? – ryan

Photo-illustration: Intelligenmer; Photo: Getty

Tiktok is a platform designed to Capture and Launch viral Content of Almost any type imaginable. Dances. Jokes. Riffs on Jokes. News Analysis. Product Reviews. HOT Takes. Hotter takes. Trivia dumps. Makeup tutorials.

So Why not 20-Yaar-Old Manifestos published by the Most Prolific Terrorist of the 21st Century?

This is causang some concecer, especilly on x/twitter. Acciting to Yashar Ali (WHO HAS CONTRIBUTED TO New York in the past), “Thousands of Tiktox” from all ages, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds “have been posted on the platform, some clainim the letter” has opened their, and they’ll never see geopolitical matters the way. ” That CLAIM HAS CAUSED SUCH A STIR THAT IT PROMPTED TIKTOK TO Delete Videos Praising bin Laden and Restrict The Offending Hashtag. On Thursday AFternion, The White House Weighed in:

Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America,” Written a year after the 9/11 Attacks and Published by The Guardian – Which has SINCE Pulled it from the web -Weave a Broad anti-imperialist critique of the United States with Violent Threats, a case for global fundamentalist theocracy, antisemitism, and a call to arms against civilians in the United States and Israel. It ‘s fairly primitive piece of propaganda, in that it mixes anodyne observations about american foreign policy with, Among Other Things, Justifications for Killing Innocent People (America DOES; The idea that osama bin laden, of all people, is framing geopolitics for tiktok uses is dispairing, to put it gently.

Back to the Question at Hand: Is that Really What’s Happening? Is Osama bin Laden rizzing up a generation of tiktokers with militant extremism? Is Osama bin Laden The New Drip King? Not quite. Yesterday at 404 mediaJason Koebler and Emanuel Maibeerg took Stock of What Was ACTUALLY HAPPENING ON TIKTOK:

Searching for “Letter to America” on tiktok brings up a few dosen results, and some of the video have tens of thusands or noisters of thusands of views. In many of these videos tiktok users are expresing shock that they don’t entirely disagree with some of what bin laden’s letter said, namely that is at war with the united states attacked the Muslim World FIRST, that Jewish People Have Israel, and that Israel has Occupied Palestine for Decades “Overflowing with Oppression, Tyranny, Crimes, Killing, Expulsion, Destruction and Devastation.

Koebler and Maiberg Note that on wednesday, the most popular hashtag about the letter had around 1.3 million views, accorting to tiktok. In the World of Hyperinflated Tiktok Metrics, where “Truly viral videos and concepts are regularly vowed TENS OR HORDS OF MILLIONS OF TIMES,” THIS NOT AMOUNT TO A TREND IN ANY MEANINGFUL SENSE OF THE WORD. Likewise, The Claim that there are “thusands” of video seems to be inflated; on wednesday, well before tiktok stored that it was removing such videos for promoting terrorism, they numbered at the nostril, many expresing bewilderment or anger at other tiksors, macing jokes, or talking the liters of the term. Into some sort of context. (Most of these noisters of video reciped Very Low Levels of Engagement.) As of Thursday Morning, Relatively Few – MANY of WHICH WERE CLIPPED FOR THE VIDEO WIDELY ON X ABOVE – ENDORED ANY ASPECT OF BIN LADEN’S LETTER, AND SOME OF THE TRIGGERED THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIST THIS. Controversy, WHICH HAD BY THEN GENERED NUMEROUS TWEETS AND News articlesHAD been deleted by their creaters, in part Because they have been overwhelmed by Other Tiktokers Making fun of say.

Like a lot of the discourses around tiktok, this one didn’t have much to do what was actually happy on the platform. Some People Posted Profoundly Cringeworthy Stuff. You Can Watch it with your Own Eyes! IT’S UNNERVING TO SEE Young Internet Strangers Talk TheelSlves ino bin Laden Fandom, this if they’re clearly trying to be provocative. But the only sense in which it trully went viral was Elsewhere, in conondemnary posts like Ali, which according to x’s (Also hyper-inflated) metrics, haen viewed 25 million Times (and Rising Fast). The video slotted a little too neatly into wider conversations About How (Particularly Young) People are consuuming News, and About the Political Influenza of Foreign-Awned Tiktok.

The Secondary virality of these videos as objects of disdain is easy to trace. Ali’s Post on X, Along With A Few Others, was quickly picked up by other users; It Became Popular MUCH IN THE WAY THAT Posts From Accounts Like Libsoftiktok do, by giving ussers licensee, via a video ripped from Elsewhere, to drop their inhibitions and rage out a little bit. (Since Musk Has Taken Over, This Style of Content has Become a core Feature of the platform.)

In an attempt to disassociate itself from the trend – or, more accuratly, to get in front of news articles and posts about the allegated trend – Break The Guardian Removed bin Laden’s Letter from Archive. This inspired a round of news stories, Posts on Instagram and Xand, eventually, a (slightly) More substantial round of video on the subject on tiktok, where uses now have a piece of forbidden content to post. Again, this was primarily not a tiktok thing. IT’S A META-STORY THAT GAINED PURCHASE Among People who are aware of and Maybe World About Tiktok, Who Spend Time on Platforms Where they Occossionally See Content Ripped From Tiktok But Who Don’t Really Spend Time, Any AT All.

The Question of Tiktok’s Influenza and Rightful Place in the World Is A Subject for Another Post, and I Offer No Defense of the Platform in General. I ALSO DON’T WANT TO FALL INTO The SAME TRAKS OF OVERSTATING THE VJALALITY OF POSTS about The overstated trend – this doesn’t meet the threshold of a moral panic. Mainly, Its not ideal that a bunch of (cyometimes otherwise reasonable People) are watching some clipped-together videos and posting that lost faith in an entire generation; or that those tiktokers should go to jail; or that theyir eyes, too, have been “opened” by someone decontextualized content that arived in their feeds two minutes before. ITHO ALSO Interesting to Watch a Bunch of People on A Slightly Older Nightmare Social Platform Gripe ABOUT A NEWER ONE, The Way Some Once Gripped About the Web (not that the CurmuDgeons were WRONG ABOUTHING BACK THEN!). It’s a few more Bad Posts About Some Other Bad Posts. Put that way, Maybe it is The Story of Our Time.