Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley recently called for a national TikTok ban over videos on the social media app promoting Osama Bin Laden's justification for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The 2002 letter, which condemned U.S. support for Israel, resurfaced on TikTok under the hashtag #lettertoamerica during the Israel-Hamas conflict. TikTok has since banned the hashtag. Bin Laden, the former leader of Al Qaeda, was killed in 2011.

The letter gained attention after being unearthed from documents related to the 9/11 attacks on The Guardian's website. After The Guardian removed the letter, young TikTok users began reading it aloud, and similar campaigns spread on other platforms like Twitter (now X) and Facebook. References to Bin Laden jumped more than 4,300% on X, and mentions of the "Letter to America" increased 1,800%.

Haley argued that banning TikTok was necessary because of videos promoting Bin Laden's letter and attracting support for his justification of the attacks. TikTok responded by saying that content promoting the letter violates its rules on supporting terrorism, and it is proactively removing such content and investigating how it appeared on the platform. Despite some videos garnering hundreds of thousands of views and likes, TikTok claims that the number of videos praising Bin Laden's argument is not large.