Pay with the 'blood of Christians': TikTok users share agreement with Bin Laden's letter

[Mosby]

A letter written 21 years ago by Osama Bin Laden, the founder of Al Qaeda, has gone viral on TikTok with many users expressing their agreement with the terrorist.

The openly-antisemitic letter, written only a year after the September 11 attacks that cost the lives of nearly 3,000 people, was published in the Guardian in 2002 but was removed on November 15, 2023, after the social media trend became known to the site.

https://www.jpost.com/international/islamic-terrorism/article-773472

I wanted to include more, but it's very hard to excerpt from JPost on my phone.

[Mosby]

1. ..

Link to tweet

[Mosby]

2. ..

Link to tweet

[TheProle]

3. More:

The Guardian Deletes Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ After It Goes Viral on TikTok

The 21-year-old missive was widely shared “without its original context,” a spokesman for the British outlet says

https://www.thewrap.com/the-guardian-deletes-osama-bin-laden-letter-to-america-tiktok/

The Guardian made the unusual move Wednesday to delete a 21-year-old letter written by Osama bin Laden from their site after several TikTokers urged followers to read the al Qaeda leader’s missive, causing “Letter to America” to go viral on the social media platform.

Guardian readers are now met with the message, “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.”

In a statement to TheWrap, a spokesperson for the U.K. outlet said, “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 contextualized it instead.”

[TheProle]

4. Not letting this die on the vine.

Take the 5 minutes to watch the video in the OP.

[TheProle]

5. From the fountainhead of the tiktok virality

In a video on Thursday, TikTok user @raeyreads spoke about the sharing of the letter as some believe she was one of the first creators to do so.

"So, I have been getting messages from news outlets. First and foremost, I want to say I will absolutely not be communicating with any Western media outlet. I do not trust you. I know, absolutely, you will spin my words against me in any way that you can," the user said in the video, adding that the "Letter to America" video she posted has been taken down by TikTok.

"I did not state anywhere that I agreed wholeheartedly with everything that was written in that letter," the user said. "However, if I'm going to post something that I think can show another side of things, I'm not going to only post a portion of it....I believe it's important to see the way that things are perceived by everybody, that are involved in it and I believe that that letter was a really great way to encourage some critical thought."

https://www.newsweek.com/osama-bin-laden-tiktok-1844538

Osama bin Laden: just another legit voice in this increasingly healthy discourse.