Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” — especially a version published at The Guardian since 2002 — recently became wildly popular on TikTok. According to the New York Times, #lettertoamerica had 14.2 million views. You can’t check that hashtag now, because TikTok banned it. The Guardian also removed the letter itself, because it was being read “without its original context:” “Therefore we have decided to take it down and direct readers to the news article that originally contextualized it instead.” This is what media now do: lather us with “context” rather than give us facts. TikTok claims it is ”aggressively” removing content.

The letter had been up for decades and is still easy to find. Those of us who remember September 11, 2001, remember the letter very well; there’s nothing startling about your enemies giving reasons for what they do. However, it got a new reception because Bin Laden listed Palestinians as the first among America’s Muslim victims. “The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals,” he wrote. The war in Gaza gave this charge new relevance, but Bin Laden had other complaints, such as sanctions against Iraq and alleged American support for the Russian war in Chechnya and Indian control of Kashmir. Bin Laden also accused America of racism because “the freedom and democracy that you call us to is for yourselves and for [the] white race only.”

Such charges weren’t surprising then and are familiar to anyone who has gone to college. However, some on TikTok called it a revelation that shook their worldview. According to the Washington Post, journalist Yashar Ali sparked the frenzy with a post on X.

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.

The TikToks are from people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and… pic.twitter.com/EwjiGtFEE3

— Yashar Ali