Will Andrew Tate be removed from TikTok and YouTube? Influencer banned from Facebook and Instagram
The 35-year-old shot to notoriety in recent weeks after videos espousing his misogynistic beliefs received billions of views on social media.
On Friday controversial influencer Andrew Tate was banned from Facebook and Instagram after being found to have contravened the platforms’ community guidelines. Meta, the company which owns the two social media giants confirmed that the 35-year-old was “violating its policies” with his misogynistic content.
Nick Lowles of campaign group Hope not Hate welcomed the news and called on other companies to do more to prevent him and others who spout dangerous ideologies from gaining a platform.
“Amazing news!” Lowles wrote. “Violent misogynist Andrew Tate has been removed from Facebook and Instagram (where he had 4 million followers). Twitter removed him this morning. Please sign the Hope not Hate petition to get other social media giants to remove him.”
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Has Andrew Tate been removed from YouTube?
While Meta has acted to removed Tate’s accounts, YouTube is yet to take any significant actions to curb the spread of the former kickboxer’s content. That may seem surprising in the face of the self-proclaimed misogynist’s extreme ideology, but his widely-viewed videos are banking the site some serious advertising revenue.
A report from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) studied 47 videos in which Tate displays “extreme misogyny” and found that nine featured paid advertising. Brands such as Vans footwear, Schwarzkopf hair products and Google Ads were displayed alongside Tate’s content.
Tate received 12.8 million views on a video in which he calls a former partner who accused him of assault “a dumb hoe.” In another, which has been watched 3.3 million times, he states that “being territorial” over women is a component of “being a man.”
Social analytics firm Social Blade estimates that these all the videos studied, which received 234 million views, would have racked up around $4 million in annual ad revenue.
Has Andrew Tate been removed from TikTok?
Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Instagram, a spokesperson for TikTok has confirmed that the platform has disabled Tate’s account. The company said that Tate’s misogynistic content “is not tolerated on TikTok” and that its “investigation into this content is ongoing.”
But while the removal of Tate’s account is a significant step, his own profile had only accrued around 100,000 followers. However his legion of young fans were making their own content from videos of Tate which was spreading far more ferociously on the platform.
The hashtag #AndrewTate has received more than 12.7 billion views.
To combat the spread of this content TikTok told Insider that it was using technology that would remove clips of Tate that were prohibited and prevent other videos from appearing on the For You discover pages for users.
It remains to be seen how successful this effort will be in tackling the growing problem of misogynistic and other extremist views on the platform.