(Trigger Warning: Description of violence against women. Reader discretion advised.)
Meta has banned controversial influencer and self-described misogynist Andrew Tate from Facebook and Instagram for failure to abide by the social media platforms' policies.
The 35-year-old influencer has been accused, among other things, of promoting misogynistic 'rape culture' content to audiences as young as 13 on social media platform TikTok. According to a Business Insider report, TikTok has also banned Tate's account, while its "investigation into this content is ongoing."
Once a professional kickboxer, Tate gained notoriety in 2016 after he was removed from TV show Big Brother over a video which appeared to depict him attacking a woman.
Twitter had banned Tate for saying women should "bear responsibility" for being sexually assaulted.
Meanwhile, Meta said it had banned the influencer from its platforms for not abiding by its policies on dangerous organisations and individuals but did not provide further details.
Tate has compared women to property and has gone to graphically describe how he would assault a woman for accusing him of cheating, and claiming that men would rather date 18 and 19-year-olds over women in their mid-20s because the former have had sex with fewer men, according to NBC News.
A Vocal Supporter of Donald Trump
Tate was a vocal supporter of former US President Donald Trump and has appeared on a number of right-wing podcasts, including shows like Infowars, hosted by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, according to The Guardian.
He had over 4 million followers on his Instagram account "Cobratate" before being removed from the platform.
He is also accused of being involved in a Romanian human trafficking probe and running a multilevel marketing scheme through his online programme “Hustler’s University 2.0.”
Netizens React
Meta's decision to ban the influencer from its platforms was met with mixed reactions. While some have supported the ban, there are many against it.
Meanwhile, a TikTok spokesperson told Business Insider that it banned Tate's account, which had over 100,000 followers and featured many videos of him talking.
“Misogyny is a hateful ideology that is not tolerated on TikTok,” the spokesperson said. “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.”
(With inputs from The Guardian and Business Insider).
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