Osama bin Laden's TikTok moment provides 'further evidence' that U.S. should ban app, House's China hawk says

By Victor Reklaitis

'It is time for a ban or a sale before it's too late,' head of House's China committee says

The head of the House's China committee is among the many people expressing outrage over Osama bin Laden's defense of the 9/11 terrorist attacks finding traction on TikTok this week.

"It's further evidence that we have to ban TikTok or force the sale before the Chinese Communist Party checkmates the free world by controlling the dominant media platform in America that can spread this dangerous, disgusting nonsense," Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said in a Fox News interview Thursday. "It is time for a ban or a sale before it's too late."

A "Letter to America" from bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs a decade after the attacks he orchestrated, has drawn fresh attention thanks to posts that connected it to the United States' role in the current Israel-Hamas war.

Other U.S. lawmakers joined Gallagher in criticizing TikTok, a popular video-sharing app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and already banned on all federal-government smartphones.

"China-owned TikTok is pushing pro-terrorist propaganda to influence Americans. These people are sympathizing with Osama bin Laden -- the terrorist responsible for 9/11 and thousands of American deaths," Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "TikTok must be banned or sold to an American company."

TikTok said it was taking down the bin Laden posts and pointed to similar content on rival platforms.

"Content promoting this letter clearly violates our rules on supporting any form of terrorism. We are proactively and aggressively removing this content and investigating how it got onto our platform," TikTok said in a post on X.

"The number of videos on TikTok is small and reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate," the company added. "This is not unique to TikTok and has appeared across multiple platforms and the media."

A bipartisan effort in Congress for a U.S. ban on TikTok appeared to have momentum in March, as Democratic and Republican lawmakers criticized the company's CEO at a closely watched hearing on Capitol Hill. But the effort then lost steam, and a divided Washington has spent time this month and in September on simply preventing a partial government shutdown.

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-Victor Reklaitis

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11-16-23 1617ET

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