Influencer Andrew Tate has been banned from Facebook and Instagram for violating their policies, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has confirmed.
The parent company of the two platforms said it had removed Tate’s official accounts for breaching its rules around dangerous organisations or individuals.
TikTok has also followed suit.
Nefarious past
Tate, a former professional kickboxer, rose to fame when he appeared on Big Brother UK in 2016. However, he was removed from the reality TV show after a video surfaced online that appeared to show him attacking a woman with a belt — a clip he claims had been edited.
He has since gained further notoriety online for a number of comments about women, including suggesting they “bear some responsibility” for being assaulted — an incident for which he was banned from Twitter.
A number of campaign groups have criticised Tate for his views and warned he was a danger to young men and boys who see his content online, urging the various platforms on which he is active to remove him.
Bad influence
Videos of and about Tate have also become popular on YouTube and TikTok — videos using a hashtag of his name have been viewed more than 13 billion times on the latter platform alone.
In a statement, a TikTok spokesman said: “Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on TikTok. We’ve been removing violative videos and accounts for weeks, and we welcome the news that other platforms are also taking action against this individual.”
Responding to news of Tate’s ban from Facebook and Instagram, Joe Mulhall, director of research at British campaign group Hope Not Hate, said: “Tate poses a genuine threat to young men, radicalising them towards extremism misogyny, racism and homophobia.
“We’ve provided significant evidence to the major social media platforms, including Meta, about his activity and why he must be removed. We welcome Meta’s swift action to remove Andrew Tate ... to prevent further spread of these extremist views.”
Ruth Davison, chief executive of UK women’s safety charity Refuge, said Meta had made the “right decision” in banning Tate.
“This is the kind of decisive action needed to tackle the online radicalisation of young men towards a violently misogynistic worldview,” she said.
“The same kind of action is now needed outside of high-profile cases like this — we know that women are experiencing stalking, harassment and abuse online every day, often without so much as a response from social media companies.”
Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, said Tate’s “hatred” had been “amplified into millions of young men’s newsfeeds”.
He said social media platforms now needed to crack down on videos showing Tate or those that amplify his views.
“More needs to be done. Tate encourages his followers to post his videos using their own accounts and link back to his website. Accounts are still pumping out clips of Tate as part of his Hustler’s University pyramid scheme. YouTube is rife with videos doing this, and have made Google up millions in ad revenue,” he said.
“Meta should now go further and ensure that other people posting videos containing Tate are sanctioned for breaching their community standards on hate, and ban the posting of links to his website, which contains material designed to radicalise young men.”
Spinning the truth?
In a statement, Tate denied he held misogynistic views and accused his critics of “twisting facts”.
“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,” the statement said.
“Internet sensationalism has purported the idea that I'm anti-women when nothing could be further from the truth. This is simply hate mobs, who are uninterested in the facts of the matter, trying to personally attack me.
“The media is spinning a false image of me on repeat, and Instagram bowing to pressure is a massive shame.
“I have nothing but positivity to spread regarding all people, whether male or female, and this has been reflected in all of my recent messaging and posts.”
