Deplatforming Andrew Tate is the best way to deal with him – Los Angeles Loyolan

For the last week, the internet has been teeming with conversation about the sudden decision by major social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube to ban Andrew Tate, a former kickboxer and TV star turned internet personality. Having blown up on TikTok because of his absurdlyinflammatory commentson women, masculinity and sexuality, Tate quickly flew afoul of the terms of service and safe use policies of these social media platforms, prompting this rare act of consistent enforcement across this many sites.

Tate has been affectionately dubbed The King of Toxic Masculinity on his journey to his latest bout of stardom from riding a wave of misogyny andalt-right talking points, tosubverting ongoing investigationsinto him for sex trafficking and rape byliving in Romania, and topping it off with aclever scamthat he pushed onto his doting fans.

Of course, a cursory Google search couldve filled in those blanks, so the real debate is actually not the validity of his ban. Any one of his flagrantly insane comments justifies removing him from a platform (like saying women couldn't drive his car because they "have no innate responsibility or honor"), but the real debate is the effectiveness of banning him. Does widespread deplatforming of a toxic ideology effectively cull its reach, or would it be more effective to allow for contention with those beliefs in the public sphere? Should we let people like Andrew Tate stay on social media so other people can prove him wrong in front of his impressionable audience?

He tries to seem like an overly masculine man ... he feels like men should conform to this idea of being strong, of being emotionally distant and unavailable, said sophomore environmental studies major Melissa Johnson, who said that despite heavily disagreeing with Tates ideas, he appeared all over her TikTok For You page for days. It was mostly duets of people supporting him and debunking every reason, every positive thing people have to say [about Tate]" she recalled, showing how Tate's messages spread like wildfire, even among groups who disagreed with him.

Kaila Uyemura, a freshman studio arts major, recounted a similar experience when initially encountering Tates ideologies. She said that the people who disagreed with him were helping him grow because his supporters would flood the comments of people going against him, [using] their big platforms, showing up on everyones For You Pages." She further noted that she thought deplatforming would help stop this unintentional amplification of his voice.

When asked about his thoughts on Tate, freshman economics major Cole Dudley said, "Hes not a positive impact on a lot of peoples lives. I know that hes a big influence on young people that view him on social media ... I know a lot of people from my high school that follow him. He kind of has a cult following of young guys. In Dudley's view, Tate appeals to a certain group of young men who lack confidence in themselves by mixing misogyny with more innocuous, basic advice for self-confidence.

The Guardian conductedan investigationinto the method by which Tate blew up and his strategies for growth, finding that Tates content exploited common insecurities among teenage boys, especially in their romantic pursuits. It concluded that Tate found loyal followers through algorithmic assistance, especially on TikTok, which was primarily pointing young men Tates primary demographic in his direction by filling their feeds with his content.

Those followers were then directed to intentionally spread further controversy by reposting his most controversial clips and commenting actively about him trying to bait action out of the side that disagreed with their rampant misogyny in order to get more eyes on the topic. This discovery of intentional algorithmic manipulation lines up exactly with the experiences of Uyemura and Johnson when initially encountering Tates content.

Ive even had this experience while browsing YouTube Shorts Ive scrolled across videos of Tate and people like him discussing masculinity or advising me that women would like me if I maintained emotional distance and kept myself traditionally masculine. The bombardment of young men by the mouth of this pipeline isviscerally effective. Like Dudley, Ive seen friends and acquaintances fall down this hole, making this sort of open discussion even more important in my view.

In the end, how effective will this deplatforming initiative actually be? The experiences of our students serve as perfect microcosms of the brand strategy outlined by the Guardian study, since they directly experienced the fallout from the intentional algorithmic manipulation by Tate's fanbase. His obviously toxic ideology was spurred on by the people who were trying to contend with his ideas in the public sphere. By trying to limit the number of people drawn in by his cohort, good people were unintentionally extending Tate's reach.

This ban is designed to cull his sphere of influence, because he was using inflammatory interactions to force himself into the conversation, naturally snowballing his presence by having such high interactions. After all, when his quotes about women being objects are so frequently shared, each clip will generate a ton of commentary, content and viewership. By trying to argue publicly against this kind of blatant bigotry, we only give them the shred of credibility and attention that they desire.

This is the opinion ofArsh Goyal, a freshman economics major from Dublin, Calif. Email comments toeditor@theloyolan.com. Follow and tweet comments to@LALoyolanon Twitter, and likethe Loyolanon Facebook.

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Deplatforming Andrew Tate is the best way to deal with him - Los Angeles Loyolan