Misogynistic Rape Enthusiast Andrew Tate Tops 'New Bestsellers' On Substack
Who's not happy? We're not happy!
Content note: sexual assault, sex trafficking, real bad misogyny
On June 9, 2024, a 26-year-old former soldier and security guard named Kyle Clifford went to the home in Hertfordshire, England, where his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt lived with her mother and sister and killed all of them using a crossbow — though not before raping and torturing Louise Hunt for several hours.
Hunt had recently broken up with him over his “views and behavior.” Not surprising, given the fact that it was later discovered that, in the run-up to the massacre, the soon-to-be family annihilator spent many hours listening to Andrew Tate.
Prosecutors argued that this should have been admitted into evidence because “the sort of violent misogyny promoted by Tate is the same type of motivation that … fuelled both the murders and the rape.” The judge, however, determined that it would be “deeply prejudicial” as Tate was “almost a poster boy for misogynists.”
Why am I telling you this horrible, horrible, deeply disturbing story? Because just recently, Andrew Tate — the violent, (alleged) sex trafficking misogynist who was in prison in Romania until the Trump administration freed him (no sex trafficker left behind!) and who makes a large portion of his money teaching men how to trick women into making them money as cam girls and allegedly inspired Kyle Clifford to violently murder three women — shot to the very top of Substack’s New Bestsellers list. Tate joined the site earlier this month and has since racked up 1.1 million followers … which is pretty incredibly depressing.
As a result, Substack ended up trending on social media yesterday, with many people (fairly!) saying that they would no longer support any site hosted on the platform. Who is a website hosted on the platform? Wonkette is a website hosted on the platform. Many users already left Substack when it was revealed that they hosted several anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi sites (and made money off of them, too). It’s likely that more will leave now.
I’m a big fan of free speech — even beyond the idea that it’s only illegal if the government censors speech, which is factually true. And this isn’t like, complaining that Bari Weiss’s “Free Press” sucks. (Bari Weiss’s Free Press sucks.) But there’s a difference, a big one, between permitting speech and platforming it, and an even bigger difference between that and making money off of it. Substack takes 10 percent of every subscription, so they’re technically making money off of Andrew Tate, an (alleged, but also self-confessed) sex trafficker and rapist who makes his money off of teaching young men how to be garbage human beings who think women are obligated to serve them.
There’s an argument that could be made for allowing all speech, no matter how vile, but there’s not really one for allowing (and benefiting from) monetization. Nearly every content creation site that allows for monetization allows for this.
On YouTube, creators who reuse content, who make automated, repetitive content, or who engage in hate speech or even serious profanity cannot make money off of their videos. The site has also banned several users entirely … including Andrew Tate. TikTok bans hate speech, bullying, and hateful ideologies and will demonetize or ban users who engage in this. Users like, again, Andrew Tate, who is also banned from TikTok. Even Meta, which, grossly, specifically allows users to “call for exclusion or use insulting language in the context of discussing political or religious topics, such as when discussing transgender rights, immigration, or homosexuality,” says they ban “hateful conduct” against protected classes and still restrict hate speech on monetized content. Andrew Tate is also banned from Meta. Twitch also bans hate speech and will demonetize content creators who violate that policy. Andrew Tate is also banned from Twitch.
Hell, even The Site Formerly Known As Twitter will take away users’ ability to monetize their feed, though less for hate speech than for, uh, getting mad about people using AI to post fake child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) of them. That would, for the record, be just about the only site other than Substack that has not banned Andrew Tate (well, since Musk has been in charge, anyway, he was banned before that).
It is worth noting that while it’s not very substantial, Substack at least has a policy against inciting violence against protected classes.
Substack cannot be used to publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes. Offending behavior includes credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition.
We can’t know what Tate is publishing on his Substack, as it is for paid subscribers only (unlike Wonkette, which will always be free), but we do know he has a long and storied habit of encouraging violence against women — who are, in fact, a protected class.
He has bragged about breaking a woman’s jaw. Once, when describing how he would react if a woman complained about him cheating on her, he said, “It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up bitch.” He has said that women should “bear some responsibility” for being raped. He’s also been accused of raping and strangling at least two women he’s dated.
In fact, he directly told one of these women “I love raping you.”
On top of that, for several years now teachers have said that they and their female students now have to deal with sexual harassment and bullying from boys as young as 11 who idolize Tate. That might not directly be “violence” but it seems highly unlikely that it won’t get to that level eventually, as these boys grow up. Even when he’s not actively encouraging violence against women, he’s promoting hatred of them in a world in which nearly 9 out of 10 women who are murdered by men are murdered by men that they know, in which we’ve seen myriad men go on mass murder sprees simply because they hate women. Indeed, an Andrew Tate admirer in the UK was sentenced to six years in prison a couple years ago after plotting an attack on his university.
If we can’t see his posts, we can’t know what kind of violence he is encouraging against women, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of that policy. Given that we know, for a fact, that this is one of his areas of interest, it would really behoove Substack to follow in the footsteps of practically every other platform on earth and kick his ass off.
Substack is not a publicly traded company. If it were, one could say it had an obligation to its stockholders to not do anything that would damage the brand so severely. However, they should feel some obligation to the world at large to not promote and make money off of someone who encourages violence against women (or anyone!), as well as to their other users who stand to lose subscriptions and money as people defect. (That’s us again, hi.)
Unfortunately, we are not in really a position to leave because (inside baseball!) we have 22 years of posts that would need to be transferred to a new site — something that took many months and tens of thousands of dollars the last few times we’ve done so. It would be a whole lot better for us if the platform would just not host and make money off of neo-Nazis and violent misogynists. It’s not actually that hard. If practically every other site on earth can do it, we think Substack can manage.
But if you’d like to continue (Or start! Always feel free to start, any time!) supporting us without supporting Substack, you can donate through Paypal, join our Patreon, or buy our merch.
We appreciate you. This bullshit, not so much.
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Say gang! Can you guess who made it possible for Andrew and Tristan Tate flee to safety from Romanian authorities to the US?
Well boys and girls if you answered Donald J Trump...BINGO!!!!!!
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