A video on TikTok has caught the attention of Sacha Baron Cohen and other Jewish celebrities for seeming to encourage antisemitism.
The 52-year-old actor called out the social platform after a video of a teen reading out Osama Bin Laden’s Letter to America was circulated.
In the 2002 letter, Bin Laden voices a ‘pro-Palestine’ stance which the creator appeared to sympathise with in light of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
On a pre-arranged call with the head honchos at TikTok, Baron Cohen accused the app of allowing ‘the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis’ to gather.
‘Shame on you!’ he is said to have scolded the executives, according to the New York Times, warning them to ‘flip the switch’ on antisemitism.
Along with this video, which TikTok is ‘aggressively’ removing, the actor also complained about a phrase floating around on the app.
Metro.co.uk understands that the letter is allowed to be shared on the social media site as long as it does not support terrorism or direct people to read the letter in full.
While content denouncing or giving education or historical context is understood to be permitted, bin Laden falls under their violent and hateful organisations policies.
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The ongoing conflict has sparked massive debates online around antisemitism and the situation in Gaza, where current death toll is up to 11,240 people – 4,630 of which are children.
Numerous Jewish celebrities declared that the app ‘is not safe for Jewish users’, including Amy Schumer and Debra Messing.
Messing reportedly asked for a ban on the phrase ‘from The River to the Sea’, which is said to equate with the eradication of Israel.
TikTok said in a statement: ‘We recognise this is an incredibly difficult and fearful time for millions of people around the world and in our TikTok community.
‘Our leadership has been meeting with creators, civil society, human rights experts and stakeholders to listen to their experiences and feedback on how TikTok can remain a place for community, discovery and sharing authentically.’
The Letter to America was published on the Observer in 2002, explaining the rationale behind the devastating 9/11 attacks, but has since been removed by the Guardian.
Under the hashtag ‘#lettertoamerica’ which has since been removed, out of context clips had been circulated to around 13 million viewers.
Bin Laden’s letter calls for the Palestinian territories to be ‘revenged’ through direct action against ‘America and Jews’.
Without context, viewers have been sympathising with support for Palestine after growing calls for a ceasefire, which British MPs rejected days ago.
Messing, according to the Times’ added: ‘I understand that you are in a very, very difficult and complicated place, but you also are the main platform for the dissemination of Jew hate.’
Adam Presser, TikTok’s head of operations who is also Jewish, said: ‘Our approach up until Oct. 7, continuing to today, has been that for instances where people use the phrase where it’s not clear, where someone is just using it casually, then that has been considered acceptable speech.’
The app does moderate speech and attempt to remove hate speech through a report system, similarly to other social platforms.
Metro has reached out to TikTok for comment.
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