The propaganda text published by the Guardian in 2002 was eventually taken offline. It is openly anti-Semitic and is used in numerous Tiktok videos and on X (formerly Twitter) to reflect the current situation in Gaza.
“The Jews have taken control of your economy and with it control of your media.” In a long, openly anti-Semitic text to Americans in 2002, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, attempted to carry out the attacks in which 2,977 people were killed.
The document, entitled “Letter to America,” was published in 2002 for journalistic purposes on the website of the British newspaper The Guardian. It resurfaced 21 years later in the context of the war between Israel and Hamas. In fact, in recent days, the text has been shared – and defended – by young Americans on Tiktok in videos viewed millions of times. Tech&Co tracked down the unexpected virality of this propaganda letter.
First, tweets from pro-Russian accounts
A few days before it was broadcast on TikTok, bin Laden’s letter was discussed on On October 29, an account created in May 2023 called “Shepherd of Truth” (“Shepherd of Truth” in French) posted the link to the letter on the Guardian website, which had published the text in November 2002.
“Osama bin Laden’s letter to America explaining why he attacked the Jews… I mean the United States. It’s thought-provoking,” he wrote in a tweet that has since been viewed 500,000 times and is still online at this point.
A message whose reach increased thanks to a publication on the same day by Jake Shields, former MMA champion also accustomed to conspiracy theories and messages of support for Vladimir Putin. In his own comment, which was viewed 350,000 times, he specifically cited support for the “terrorist state of Israel” as the cause of the September 11 attacks.
Around November 10, the Google Trends website saw a significant increase in searches related to the terms “Bin Laden letter.” However, this data only measures the evolution of interest in that query.
They do not make it possible to determine a trend in the absolute value and therefore in the number of search queries. Note that this increase occurs only ten days after the letter was published on X. It is therefore likely that it is more related to the first redirects on other platforms, especially Tiktok.
Millions of views on TikTok
Between November 10 and November 15, dozens of videos were posted on Tiktok, the most popular of which rehabilitated Bin Laden’s speech and drew a parallel with support for the Palestinian cause. Bin Laden’s letter attacks Americans and “the Jews” and describes his action as “resistance.” At numerous points in the text the situation of the Palestinians is used to justify his actions.
“I won’t see life the same way anymore,” reacts a Tiktok user followed by 1.1 million people.
His video, accompanied by a Palestinian flag and a request to read the former al-Qaeda leader’s letter, was viewed more than 1.2 million times.
Screenshot Tiktok – BFMTV
“I’m trying to live a normal day, but I searched Google for ‘letter to America,'” another user explains in a video viewed 1.4 million times after urging internet users to read bin Laden’s letter another respected publication read millions of times.
Some sequences go even further. In a nearly 10-minute video that has been viewed 130,000 times, one internet user believes the text is “the voice of a man who wants to tell you he has nothing against you, but who responds when you seek conflict. “ .) He is a man who saw what happened in Palestine.”
“To me this doesn’t look like a letter from a terrorist. (…) It doesn’t look like someone who wants to harm me. (…) It doesn’t look like someone who wants to send me something “a plane to the most prestigious building in the country,” she believes, repeating the many conspiracy theories related to September 11th.
The first comment made by Tiktok under this video therefore assumes that Osama Bin Laden was “not a terrorist”.
According to the Washington Post, bin Laden’s letter was directly mentioned in around 700 videos, resulting in several million views, although we cannot accurately estimate this number.
This spread was probably accelerated by the social network itself. This was the first result the application suggested when searching for the term “Bin Laden,” including in France, on November 16, Tech&Co noted.
Tiktok screenshot (search is performed after resetting the recommendation algorithm parameters) – BFMTV
The letter was deleted by the Guardian
As the Wayback Machine tool shows, this highlighting of Osama bin Laden’s letter on Tiktok increases the number of visits to the Guardian page where the text is displayed. On November 15, it was the fourth most read article on its American portal. On the same day, the Guardian website finally announced that it had deleted the document, which had been online for 21 years.
A deletion that causes a “Streisand effect” that is very common on the Internet. This means that removing information often leads to reinforcing that same information. The Guardian’s deletion of the text thus contributes to intensifying the discussions surrounding Bin Laden’s letter and indeed the videos on Tiktok.
On Twitter, American journalist Yashar Ali publishes a compilation of Tiktok videos to denounce this phenomenon of bin Laden’s rehabilitation.
“The Guardian had published a copy of the ‘Letter to America’, but as soon as those Tiktok videos went viral, the Guardian deleted the page. “This primarily increased interest in the letter, but also conspiracy theories from Tiktok users who explain that the media and those in power are trying to hide the truth,” he explains.
A message that partially contributed to the media coverage of the phenomenon, as it had already been seen 36 million times at that point.
In the end, the White House reacts
This Thursday, November 16, Tiktok on Twitter is trying to contain the controversy. After promoting these videos through its search engine, the platform finally concludes that this content violates its usage rules excusing terrorism and promises to delete the videos rehabilitating Osama Bin Laden.
Tiktok also estimates that the hundreds of videos on this topic represent “only a small number” of content and that their visibility (several million views) is limited compared to other, much more popular videos.
Given the situation, the White House spokesman finally took up the topic. “There is no justification for the spread of the vile and vicious anti-Semitic lies expressed by the leader of al-Qaeda after the worst terrorist attack in American history,” recalled Andrew Bates, quoted by Portal.