The letter, which attempts to justify the targeting and killing of American civilians, was first published in 2002. It began to recirculate this week on the social media platform, and videos on the topic had garnered at least 14 million views by Thursday. Many of the videos, which supported some of Bin Laden's assertions and urged other users to read the letter, were shared in the wider context of criticism of American support for Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas.

TikTok said on Thursday that videos promoting the letter violate its rules against "supporting any form of terrorism." The company said the number of videos promoting the letter were "small" and added "reports of it trending on our platform are inaccurate."

TikTok declined to provide specific data to support this assertion.

TikTok is hugely popular with young Americans, with a majority of Americans under 30 using the app at least once a week, according to a KFF survey. Many of TikTok's users were born after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks when 19 men hijacked commercial airliners, intentionally crashed the planes, and killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, Washington, DC, and rural Pennsylvania. The attack was orchestrated by Bin Laden, the former leader of the al Qaeda terrorist group who was killed in a US special forces raid in 2011.

TikTok's design makes it difficult to precisely measure how popular or widespread a sentiment is on the platform, but an initial CNN review found a few dozen videos overtly praising or sympathizing with the sentiments expressed in the letter, which is titled "Letter to America."

Many of the videos were shared with the hashtag #lettertoamerica. By Thursday, views of those videos had exceeded 14 million, yet some videos were from?users expressing frustration and disgust about the letter and how it was being praised by others on the platform.