Conspiracy theories, misinformation and extremism have been rampant on the app for years.
A surprising number of young people have recently posted TikTok videos in praise of Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America.”
The speakers in these videos, overwhelmingly by people who look too young to even remember 9/11, focus on how bin Laden’s antisemitic pro-terrorism screed opened their eyes to America’s evils. “Under settler colonialism,” one said, “Any kind of resistance is branded as terrorist because the only acceptable violence is violence by the occupier,” implying that al-Qaeda’s terror attacks that killed 3,000 Americans were an acceptable act of defiance. [...]