The danger of Andrew Tate’s social media domination
Andrew Tate believes rape victims are to blame, women are the sole property of men, and only dates women aged 18-19 to make an imprint on them. Yet this influencer has received millions of views and likes online, reaching fame for talking about hitting women, stopping them from going out, and choking any ‘dumb hoe.’
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| Credit: Essentially Sports. |
Former reality-TV star-turned- influencer Andrew Tate was banned from Facebook and Instagram last weekend after the ‘King of Toxic Masculinity’ drew concerns over his attitudes towards women. Interestingly, Tate’s close friends list boasts the likes of Brexiteer Nigel Farage, anti-Islam activist and former EDL leader Tommy Robinson and even former US President Donald Trump.
The former kickboxer has millions of followers across his social media, but was recently banned from most of these sites for his worrying stance on women. His money-making program for his followers, Hustler’s University, was quickly shut down. Days later, he was banned from TikTok for breaching its policies regarding ‘content that attacks, threatens, incites violence against, or otherwise dehumanises an individual or a group.’
In April this year, the internet personality’s home in Romania was raided in connection with a human-trafficking investigation. Despite no arrest being made, a delve into Tate’s YouTube uncovers a worrying video of him detailing that his move to Romania was highly influenced by the fact Romanian police are more reluctant to investigate sexual-assault allegations. In response to these allegations, Tate cleared up that he is not a rapist, but likes ‘the idea of just being able to do what I want. I like being free.’
Unlike its fellow social media siblings, Twitter took action against Tate in 2017 and permantely banned him after he wrote a thread on sexual-assault allegations against Harvey Wienstein. One comment read, ‘If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must [bear] some responsibility.’ It’s not just his misogynistic views that are concerning. His former Twitter account contained numerous posts with homophobic and racial slurs. In September 2017, he even stated that depression wasn’t real. All of these incidents saw him barred from Twitter.
Despite Tate’s bans on various social networking sites, is it too little too late? Tate amassed 11.4 billion views on his TikTok account, a staggering amount for a self-proclaimed misogynist. Despite breaking TikTok’s rules for months, the platform did little to limit Tate or ban his account until recently. This saw him soar into mainstream media with his clips proliferating the screens of young users. With Tate’s influence grasping young people far and wide, his comments show the reality of misogyny on social media.
The British-American isn’t a newcomer to the social media scene and has certainly not kept his misogyny quiet. He’s been particularly vocal on how he’d ‘deal’ with women; in one video talking about how he would deal with cheating accusations, the former reality star said: ‘It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face, and grip her by the neck.’ The fact Tate garnered so many followers is worrying; the amount of easily influenced young boys or people with like-minded views that were perhaps encouraged by the video cannot even be counted. With statements like: ‘Females don’t have independent thought’, it’s worrying what the influencers of today are teaching young people. It’s more worrying seeing educated people supporting Tate and his views.
Campaign groups such as Hope Not Hate continue to petition for Tate’s content to be removed from all platforms as his ‘violently misogynistic, racist, and homophobic content...poses a genuine threat.’
Hannah Ruschen, Policy Officer at NSPCC, commented on the worrying platform given to Tate: ‘Viewing such material at a young age can shape a child’s experiences and attitudes, resulting in further harm to women and girls in and out of school and online.'
Perhaps the most shocking thing about Tate is his rise to fame, beginning with a one-week stint on Big Brother in 2016. He was quickly removed from the house after a video emerged of him hitting women. Shortly after, a second video emerged where Tate is depicted telling a woman to count the bruises he caused her. Despite this proof of misogyny and abuse, social media networks still allowed him to render support across multiple platforms.
This extreme misogyny is capable of radicalising men and boys to commit harm against women both on and offline. In a world where it’s scary for a woman to walk home alone in the dark, is social media allowing misogynists to enter our homes too?