Toxic masculinity has been turned into social media currency
Andrew Tate is a misogynist.
He says women belong in the home, can’t drive, and are a man’s property. He also thinks rape victims must “bear responsibility” for their attacks and dates women aged 18–19 because he can “make an imprint” on them.
These aren’t beliefs he holds privately. You don’t have to scour the bowels of the dark web to find them or sift through Romanian prosecution files for references.
These are beliefs he airs publicly on his social media channels and then teaches other men who like the cut of his jib how to be like him in ‘university’ courses they pay money to attend.
And, if his estimations are to be believed, he’s done rather well out of it too.
The Rise of the Aggro-rithm
But before we give him too much credit, there is mounting evidence that the “aggro-rithm” could be responsible for aiding men who peddle toxic masculinity to push their views on young lads who, more likely than not, found their content through innocent and unrelated searches,
New research of 1,000 parents and boys as well as over 4,000 teachers conducted by Vodafone in partnership with the Global Action Plan has found almost six-in-10 (69 per cent) boys aged 11-14 have been exposed to online content that promotes misogyny and other harmful views, while over half (52 per cent) are aware of and have engaged with content from influencers with ties to the manosphere, a term used to describe the network of online communities responsible for creating and promoting negative, often misogynistic content.
What’s more, one in five parents have noticed a gradual change over time in the language their sons use to talk about women and girls, while 70 per cent of teachers have seen a rise in sexist language in the classroom during the last 12 months.
Commenting on the research, Sonja Graham, CEO at Global Action Plan, said: “The only way to dial down misogyny and negative masculinity online is to rein in and reform the systems that recommend it. It’s imperative that products and services that use AI algorithms to recommend content, in particular those used by young children and teens, are safe by design.
“We know that parents are putting the responsibility squarely on themselves to protect their children online, but this rise in boys seeing harmful content isn’t the fault of the parents and it isn’t the fault of the boys.
“We need safety by design to be a priority within the fight for a safer online world and that’s why we are calling on everyone to sign our petition and show regulators the strength of public feeling.”
Gaming the system
What will be particularly concerning for regulators is the ease with which manosphere influencers are able to game the system.
In the last year, videos with Tate in them have been attracting millions of views on TikTok, and none of the posts come from Tate himself.
Instead, members of Hustler’s University have been posting clips out in an attempt to attract more people to the club (ponzi, anyone?), and they have been advised that to have the best chance of reaching people, they have to stoke controversy to improve their chances of going viral.
In one guide, Hustler’s University “students” are told that attracting “comments and controversy” is the key to success: “What you ideally want is a mix of 60-70 per cent fans and 40-30 per cent haters. You want arguments, you want war.”
And although many of the videos appear, at first glance, to be completely innocent, even funny, they quickly turn more sinister.
Far-right
It is a story I have heard before.
In 2021, I interviewed reformed far-right content creator Caolan Robertson, who worked with Tommy Robinson for a period before turning to help Brits escape radicalisation.
Expecting that he would tell me that he was radicalised by neo-Nazi groups or the EDL it was a shock when he told me that the real culprit was YouTube.
“I remember when the Orlando shooting happened. Back in 2015 2016. I typed Orlando shooting into YouTube, and the top-rated results were Milo” (the right-wing political commentator), he said.
“And once I’d watched those videos, they recommended a shit tonne more. And I just like went down that rabbit hole watching it all.
“That kind of made me really think it was like basically normal to believe that stuff.”
Vodafone has created a new toolkit in conjunction with NSPCC which supports parents in having online safety conversations with their children.
You can find the tool kit here.
