Panic ensues as TikTokers tout bin Laden
American political leaders and mainstream journalists love a good social-media freak-out, so it’s no surprise many of them became overwrought at the news that a young generation of TikTokers had discovered terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America,” where he described his rationale for murderous attacks on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
The letter — a screed that combines radical Islamic theology with geopolitical machinations — went viral in the aftermath of the recent Mideast war given his support for the Palestinian cause. Millions of TikTok users had discovered the long-ignored video, with some of them explaining it had changed their view of the world.
It’s disturbing and bizarre, but it’s a big world with lots of misguided people.
Republican politicians seized on the incident, with Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas calling for a ban on TikTok to stop it from foisting “terrorist propaganda on American kids.” Others renewed concerns that the app, owned by a Chinese company, is tracking users’ personal information.
In response, TikTok scrubbed associated content, as did some media outlets. When readers go to the letter’s link at the Guardian, they get a message stating it “decided to take it down and direct readers instead to the news article that originally contextualized it.” Basically, you’re too stupid to understand this yourself, so read their article explaining it to you.
Yet the letter remains easy to find. Bin Laden details his case against American foreign policy and argues, “Whoever has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy.” It calls on Americans to embrace Islam and reject the “immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.” And he also began his letter complaining about “the devastating Jewish control of capital and about a day that would come when it would enslave you.”
It’s true, on the one hand, that it’s disturbing so many young people, who ostensibly think of themselves as incredibly sensitive to injustice and discrimination, would find in Bin Laden’s anti-Semitic ramblings something to identify with.
But we must also resist panicking over everything some sliver of young people do online.
We agree with the publication Vox, which described the kerfuffle as the latest “moral panic” equivalent to last year’s “about kids baking NyQuil in chicken.”
Social-media often seems like a cesspool, but the answer isn’t to ban platforms and remove links.
It is up to those of us who see the absurdity for what it is to combat poisonous viewpoints with well-researched and properly reasoned arguments.
Most young people, we believe, are capable of understanding that anti-Semitic, Islamic extremist terrorists responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people shouldn’t be supported. It’s not complicated.
Beat bad speech with better speech. That’s the way forward.