Influencers like Andrew Tate drive extreme misogyny, British police say

Online influencers like Andrew Tate are radicalizing young boys and men in much the same way terrorists recruit followers, the police have warned.

The National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) estimated that at least one in 12 women in England and Wales would be victims of violence every year – or about 2 million.

The NPCC said the numbers could only be “a tip of the iceberg” and described the violence against women and girls (VAWG) as an “epidemic” in a new report.

It said there had been a 37% increase in recorded VAWG crimes over the five-year period starting 2018 and warned the problem was growing, with “more complicated types of offending.”

Young men and boys are being radicalized into extreme misogyny by online influencers like Andrew Tate, said Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, who heads the police efforts in preventing VAWG related crimes.

The impact online influencers have is “quite terrifying,” Blyth said, noting that police officers dealing with VAWG crimes are now working with counter-terrorism teams to look at the risk of young men being radicalized.

She said: “We know that some of this is also linked to radicalisation of young people online, we know the influencers, Andrew Tate, the element of influencing of particularly boys, is quite terrifying and that’s something that both the leads for counterterrorism in the country and ourselves from a VAWG perspective are discussing.”

Blyth said the Online Safety Act, which came into force in the UK in October last year and is meant to improve online safety, needs to go further. Faster action should be taken to protect children, she said.

VAWG is a “national threat” and the police findings are “alarming,” said Sophie Francis-Cansfield from Women’s Aid, a charity. She also noted that many survivors will not report their experiences, therefore “we know the issue will be much larger than the data shows.”

“Without meaningful collaboration and action, women and children will continue to be failed when it comes to be protected and when seeking justice for the abuse they have endured,” she said.

Andrew Tate is a controversial British-American influencer and self-proclaimed “misogynist” awaiting trial in Romania, where he is charged with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group to sexually exploit women.

Cybernews reported earlier this month that Tate’s learning platform, The Real World, exposed hundreds of thousands of users and 22 million messages after its 88GB dataset was leaked.