YouTube has become the latest platform to permanently ban former kickboxer Andrew Tate for breaching its rules on hate speech.
The website said channels associated with Mr Tate had been removed for breaching its terms of service, following similar moves by Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Mr Tate, 35, first came to prominence when he appeared on the TV show Big Brother in 2016, but 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.
Since then, he has gained further notoriety online for a string of comments about women, including suggesting that they ‘bear some responsibility’ if they are assaulted – an incident which led to him being banned from Twitter.
In one video, Tate advised men accused of cheating by their girlfriends to ‘bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up b*tch.’
Born in Chicago, Illinois, but brought up in Luton, Bedfordshire, Tate has garnered a reputation over his various business activities.
He operated a website called ‘Hustler’s University’ in which members pay a monthly fee in order to receive instructions on drop shipping and cryptocurrency.
Tate’s followers earned commission for signing up new members, leading critics to label it a ‘pyramid scheme’. The marketing programme closed this month.
Together with his brother Tristan, he allegedly set up a webcam business in Romania in which young models told sob stories to unsuspecting male viewers.
Despite telling the Sunday Mirror that the site was ‘a total scam’, Tate claims to have made millions from it.
But it is his outspoken videos, popular with many young men, for which Tate is chiefly known. Clips on Instagram under the hashtag Andrew Tate have racked up over 11.6 billion views, and clips of on TikTok have been viewed more than 13 billion times.
At the time of his removal, he had 4.7 million followers on Instagram – this number had grown rapidly from around one million followers just two months ago in June.
A number of campaign groups have criticized Mr Tate for his views and warned he was a danger to young men and boys who see his content online, urging the various platforms on which he is active to remove him.
