Andrew Tate and Internet Misogyny

Recently, someone on my Instagram following list shared this video which had a bald man with tinted glasses talk about how women should be treated. The video was of the former British kickboxing star Andrew Tate who has reached internet fame among adolescent boys and young men. However, the reason for his sharp rise to fame is very sinister, as his misogynistic and queerphobic rhetoric has been the particular driver leading him to his social media fame with his TikTok videos garnering over 11.6 billion views.

Some of his problematic comments include, but are not restricted to, blaming victims of rape, highlighting grooming as being something positive and how women are the property of men. Not only is his online presence misogynistic, his real life activities have also included gender based violence too. The former star of the reality show Big Brother was removed from the show after videos surfaced of him hitting a woman with a belt.

This is specifically problematic because most of his videos are watched by young and impressionable boys around the globe who are influenced to have a very distorted version of what masculinity is supposed to be.

This means that they grow up to have problematic views about how they should treat women and this may translate into active hate crimes against women. We have already seen how unchecked internet hate speech can lead to violence, especially with incel forums such as 9chan influencing the actions of mass shooters.

However, this leads me to ask – why haven't TikTok and other social media platforms banned his account as of yet?

The primary reason why social media platforms have not taken an active stance yet is simply because such large social media corporations are able to profit off the views on Andrew Tate's distasteful content. In fact, it is much more beneficial for such social media platforms to allow widespread sharing of his videos because of the ad revenues they generate. Therefore, they have an active incentive to propel him into the mainstream cyberspace, allowing boys as young as thirteen to be indoctrinated by his content.

It is evident that misogynists will argue that free speech is a right everyone is entitled to, and that cancel-culture is counter-productive. But in this case, cancelling an individual is justified simply because the harmful impacts caused by that individual may be greater than the impacts of setting cancel culture as a precedent. De-platforming an individual is a much better trade-off than creating a generation full of misogynists where gender based violence is constantly on the rise.

Therefore, social media platforms have an active responsibility to ensure that such malicious people like Andrew Tate are unable to spew their hateful and bigoted world-views, so that people are not exposed to such radical content endangering communities who are vulnerable in the status quo.

Hrishik is a contributor at SHOUT. Reach out to him at hrdibbo@gmail.com