Andrew Tate now banned from YouTube for breaching rules on hate speech-Mel Evans-Entertainment – Metro

YouTube is the latest platform to ban the controversial figure (Picture: Instagram / Andrew Tate)

YouTube has joined the likes of Facebook and Instagram in banning Andrew Tate from its platform amid ‘multiple violations’ of its community guidelines.

The Google-owned video platform said this week channels associated with Tate had been removed for breaching its terms of service, including its hate speech policy.

This decision follows similar moves in the past week by Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

Former kickboxer Tate, who came to prominence after a stint on Big Brother in 2016 (he was removed from the programme after a video surfaced online which appeared to show him attacking a woman with a belt – a clip he claimed had been edited) has gained further notoriety online recently for comments he’s made about women.

One such comment saw him suggest women ‘bear some responsibility’ if they are assaulted, which saw him banned from Twitter. He also spoke about hitting and choking women, stopping them from going out, and destroying their belongings.

Videos of and about Tate have gone viral in recent months on YouTube and TikTok in particular – where a hashtag of Tate’s name on has received more than 13 billion views – which has led to campaigners to call for further action to be taken to stop the spread of what it says is dangerous content.

The former Big Brother star has gained notoriety for his comments (Picture: cobratate/Instagram)

In a statement given to Bloomberg, a YouTube spokesperson said that channels associated with Tate had been removed because of ‘multiple violations’ of YouTube’s community guidelines and terms of service, including its hate speech policy.

It said: ‘If a channel is terminated, the uploader is unable to use, own or create any other YouTube channels.’

Online safety and anti-hate campaign groups said they had been warning of the dangers of Tate’s online commentary for some time, noting that videos of him were often widely re-shared by his followers and supporters, and urged social media platforms to go beyond just banning personal or linked accounts he was known to use.

Joe Mulhall, director of research at Hope Not Hate, said: ‘We are delighted that after discussions with YouTube, and our public campaigning, they have permanently removed his account.

‘Andrew Tate’s YouTube account was a huge source for harmful content which spread like wildfire across the internet.

‘But more action is required from all major tech platforms to make the internet a safer place. Removing Tate’s accounts from platforms does not automatically remove his content.’

On Friday, TikTok said it had been removing videos and accounts linked to Tate ‘for weeks’ and would continue to do so.

In the wake of Facebook and Instagram banning him last week, Tate issued a statement denying that he held misogynistic views and accused his critics of ‘twisting facts’.

Ruth Davison, chief executive of 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.’

In one of the videos, in which Tate was being interviewed by another YouTuber, he said: ‘I’m a realist and when you’re a realist you’re sexist. There’s no way you can be rooted in reality and not be sexist’.

Tate proceeded to call women ‘intrinsically lazy’ and claimed there is ‘no such thing as an independent female’.

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‘If I have responsibility over her, then I must have a degree of authority,’ he said in another video. ‘You can’t be responsible for a dog if it doesn’t obey you.’

This isn’t the first time Tate been subject to allegations of misogyny, having been famously ejected from the BB house six years ago over a video which seemingly showed him attacking a woman.

He previously branded the clip a ‘total lie’, claiming that it was ‘trying to make me look bad’.

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