In 2017, Twitter permanently suspended influencer Andrew Tate’s account after he
tweeted that women should “bear some responsibility” for being sexually assaulted. Now, five years later, other social media platforms are following suit, including Instagram, Facebook,
TikTok, and YouTube.
Tate is a former kickboxer who has a history of spreading hateful, violent, anti-woman
rhetoric. He attained public notoriety in 2016 after being removed from the popular TV show Big Brother because of a video depicting him attacking a woman.
In April, Tate’s Romanian mansion was raided by authorities after receiving a tip from the U.S. embassy that a 21-year-old
American woman was being held against her will. The investigation, which includes human-trafficking and rape allegations, is ongoing.
Tate has since amassed a huge following on social media, especially among younger users. Because of this, parents and teachers have taken part in a widespread online
campaign to deplatform Tate.
Meta permanently removed Tate’s official accounts from Instagram and
Facebook last week. A spokesperson said it violated the company’s policies on dangerous individuals and organizations.
At the time of the ban, Tate had 4.7 million
followers on Instagram.
On Monday, TikTok banned an account of Tate’s after carrying out an investigation. The popular
short-form video platform is using software to identify and remove re-uploads of Tate’s videos in violation with its Community Guidelines, as well as flagging offensive content so it won’t
be recommended on users’ For You feeds.
“Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on
TikTok,” a spokesperson told NBC. “Our investigation into this content is ongoing, as we continue to remove violative accounts and videos, and pursue measures to strengthen our
enforcement, including our detection models, against this type of content.”
Over the past month, repackaged videos of Tate gained accelerated growth on
TikTok, with Tate-tagged clips being watched over a billion
times.
On Tuesday, YouTube became the latest platform to ban channels associated with Tate,
including “TateSpeech,” which has over 744,000 subscribers.
The video platform ––
also extremely popular among younger
users –– say Tate violated its Community Guidelines and Terms of Service, including its hate speech policy.
The company also says that if another channel re-uploads videos from a previously banned channel, YouTube may remove the content and potentially terminate the channel.
Tate sees these terminations differently.
“It is very
unfortunate that old videos of me, where I was playing a comedic character, have been taken out of context and amplified to the point where people believe absolutely false narratives about me,”
Tate said in an email statement to NBC on Monday.
The only major social media channel that has not yet banned Tate is Twitch. His channel remains
active on the platform with 50,000 followers.