There Are No Girls on the Internet - UPDATE: Andrew Tate detained in Romania - Tain’t comin’ home soon

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

Misogynistic, violent scam influencer Andrew Tate was detained in Romania in connection with a human trafficking ring.  Let’s revisit our episode on who Tate is and why it matters that he has a platform. My piece at the Nation- It’s Not Just Joe Rogan. The Entire Digital Space Is Rotten.https://www.thenation.com/article/society/toxic-podcasting/ The Grid: Andrew Tate isn’t just another misogynist with an online following. Here’s why you need to pay attention. https://www.grid.news/story/technology/2022/08/23/andrew-tate-isnt-just-another-misogynist-with-an-online-following-heres-why-you-need-to-pay-attention/ Laura Bates on TANGOTI- full episode- https://www.tangoti.com/episode-214See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. So I hope everybody is having a fantastic holiday season. And I'm actually popping in from my holiday break to let y'all know that Christmas came a little bit late this year in the form of the news that misogynistic grifter Andrew Tate and his brother were detained in connection with human trafficking in Romania.

And it could not have happened in a more delicious way, so let's get into it. This week, Andrew Tate tweeted a photo just dripping with insecurity where he was showing off his cars. And for some reason, probably crippling self-esteem issues and a need for negative attention and validation, he tagged 19-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg

saying, please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions. Greta replied, yes, please do enlighten me. You can reach me at small dick energy at getalife.com. And everyone on the internet just loved it. And Tate was like,

I don't care. I'm not bothered. And the show, just how not bothered he was, he made a whole video response of him sitting at a table smoking his trademark cigar next to an empty box of pizza. Now, it's important to know that Tate has been under investigation in connection to a human trafficking ring for some time. On the very gross men's rights podcast, Fresh and Fit, Tate explained how he made lots of money by soliciting women to make adult content, saying, I found this little webcam thing and thought, this might be some money. We started the webcam business from my apartment, and it just grew and grew. At one point, I had 75 women working for me in four locations, and I was doing $600,000 a month. Now, it's not totally clear if this is the same business that led to his detainment,

but Romanian prosecutor said that four people, quote, appear to have created an organized crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing, and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content. So basically the allegations are that he was trafficking women and forcing them to do online sex work and just pocketing the money. CNN reports the authorities allege that two of the suspects misled the victims, quote, into believing that they intended to enter into a marriage, cohabitation relationship, while transporting victims to Romania and later sexually exploiting them with physical violence and coercion,

which are very, very serious allegations. Now, compare that to what Andrew Tate wrote on his own website, An archived version of which was uncovered by a PhD student Krista Peterson-Peterso, hawking his scammy, pickup artist coaching business, where he says, why am I an expert on all-male-female interactions? I've been running a webcam studio for nearly a decade. I've had over 75 girls work for me, and my business model is different than 99% of webcam studio owners. Over 50% of my employees were actually my girlfriend at the time. And of all my girlfriends, none were in the adult entertainment industry before they met me.

Literally, that was my job. My job was to meet a girl, go on a few dates, sleep with her, test if she's quality, and get her to fall in love with me where she would do anything I say, then get her on a webcam so that we could become rich together. So yeah, it does kind of sound like what the Romanian officials have alleged he was involved with to me. And Tate has been pretty open about the fact that the reason that he lives in Romania in the first place is because that he figured the Romanians would be less likely to charge him for sex crimes. Now, a good rule of thumb for anybody is that if you're on the lamb, especially from a government,

it's probably a good idea to keep a low digital profile. Like, I probably would not be podcasting if I were wanted by the state. But Andrew Tate does things differently. And soon after he sent his video response to Greta Thunberg, his villa was raided and he was detained by authorities in Romania. Police served search warrants at five homes and detained four suspects as part of the investigation into organized human trafficking and rape. Now, many speculated that it was that Pizza Box, visible in his video response to Greta Thunberg, that tipped off authorities to his whereabouts, which, holy crap, the deliciousness. I know, I know. But I'm sorry to say that according to CNN, Romanian authorities just said that it was social media activity that led to his detainment,

not really the pizza box specifically. But you know what? I don't care. It's Christmas and I'm going to have this one. You might remember that Tate was banned from pretty much every social media platform this past summer, but when Elon Musk took over at Twitter, he quickly let Andrew Tate back on. Listen, I know that Andrew Tate,

a grown-ass man and his insatiable need to use social media to dunk on a teenager leading to his downfall is pretty funny. But we are definitely talking about very serious, dangerous allegations. You know, Andrew Tate was allegedly taking part in very serious crimes against women while also being given a huge platform on social media and podcasts to show off all the cars and money that he made from allegedly harming women

while being able to influence men and boys to want to be just like him. Who is Andrew Tate was the most search sentence starting with Who Is on Google this year. And right now, there are scores of young men and boys defending him. him. It's scary, and to get into why that is, let's revisit the conversation that we had about Andrew Tate when he was first de-platformed back in August. Social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook have finally banned violent, misogynistic scam influencer Andrew Tate. And honestly, it should have happened sooner. Now, if you don't know who Andrew Tate is, don't worry. He went from being relatively obscure to seemingly being everywhere

on social media within a few months. Video is featuring his name as a hashtag have been viewed over 13 billion times. And before it was shut down, his TikTok account had over 11 billion views. He had 4 million Twitter followers, 4.7 million Instagram followers, almost 800,000 YouTube subscribers, and millions and millions of clicks and shares across Facebook. So who is Andrew Tate? Well, Andrew Tate is kind of like Joe Rogan on steroids. Just like Rogan, at one time, Andrew Tate was a professional martial artist. And also like Rogan. Andrew Tate did a stent in reality television. Tate was on Big Brother in 2016, where he was known for being really respectful and thoughtful of others. Oh, wait, sorry, just kidding. It says here he was

actually known for homophobia and violence against women. After a video surfaced where he was beating a woman with a belt while screaming at her, quote, if you ever message another guy, whether we're together or not, you're fucking dead. Tate was kicked off Big Brother after only being on the show for six days. Andrew Tate's podcast is called Tate speech. And it's basically exactly what you think it is. He's part of what we call the Manosphere, a loosely connected ecosystem of online websites and influencers that traffic in misogyny and racism on places like 4chan and Reddit. If you listen to our episode with Laura Bates, a researcher and writer who went undercover in the Manosphere to research her book, Men Who Hate Women, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

So Andrew Tate's whole thing is these clips of him speaking on his podcast, wearing sunglasses and doors, you know, like you do, and smoking a cigar while he basically says the most violent, sexist nonsense that makes him sound like an alpha male. Like, here is his take on why he is anti-breakfast. This is an act. This is an actual quote from him. I don't have food in the mornings. I don't like the idea of breakfast. Waking up from sleep instantly with available food that you didn't have to hunt and kill.

Breakfast breathes arrogance and laziness. I will not eat until work has been done. Instead, I start my day with hunger and memories. My path to the top wasn't a straight line. There's been bumps in the road, tears, blood. I sit and remember the worst times of my life, the pain and the heartache. Some mornings, if I try, I can almost cry. I take all that anguish and pain and then add a little nicotine and caffeine to set my blood on fire,

and I enter the world ready to win life or die while I'm trying. Angry men siege nations. I don't have time for Cheerios. The universe will pay me what she owes me. All the money and power I deserve. So, yeah, sounds pretty healthy. Definitely sounds like someone who has got a healthy start to the day and encouraging others to do the same. Let's take a quick break.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart.

Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at IHeart Advert. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs,

the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaders to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. SportsSlice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. And we're back. Andrew Tate's brand of hyperviolence, toxic hypermasculinity and misogyny, basically says that women are property of men,

this is something that he's actually said, and he advocates for men using violence and relationships. He outright said that if a woman ever asked him about cheating, he would physically attack her. In a really good piece for Grid, reporter Christian Thorsberg spoke to Josh Rose, a political sociologist and senior research fellow at Deacon University in Melbourne, who says that Tate represents a dramatic shift taking place in online misogyny, moving beyond the sexualization and dismissal of women, which much of Tate's material promotes, to also encouraging gendered hate and violence. So basically, it's not just man or better than women.

It's manner better than women, and therefore men should be able to use violence in service of establishing and maintaining that hierarchy. And this is even more troubling when you consider that the majority of Tate's audience are young men and boys. Teachers have been writing about how Andrew Tate's popularity with boys has been creating problems and disturbances in their classrooms. So Tate is popular with boys, but he's also really popular with young men who are just starting to navigate their way into young adulthood.

Going back to Ruse from that grid piece, Rousse also said, if you want to know where Andrew Tate is gaining traction, it's more likely to be the white-collar sector among educated younger men who work out at gyms on the weekend or after work. younger men are more likely to hold anti-women attitudes in terms of women's rights, that women's rights has gone too far. So on top of all this, Andrew Tate is also a scammer.

Let's get that straight right away. He used to operate a porn webcam business with his brother that his brother outright described as, quote, a big scam. But that scam is actually the least scammy scam that Andrew Tate is involved in. Because his whole thing, his whole ethos, his whole identity, is a scam. So I've actually written about the ways that misogynistic podcasters and content creators and influencers who make up the Manosphere are all basically just scamming. They prey on men and boys with low media literacy who may feel lonely. They get into their heads and convince them

to send over money. Podcasts like Fit in Fresh, the late Kevin Samuels, they all basically convince young men and boys to send them lots and lots of money or give them lots and lots of engagement in service of learning how to become high-value men. I actually wrote a piece on this for the nation, talking about the Fresh and Fit podcast, which you can read in the show notes. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear you. your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started.

That's 844-8-4-8-4-I-Hart. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down,

give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice. radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. And we're back. So let's talk about Andrew Tate's scam specifically. It is called Hustlers University, where for the low, low cost of $50 a month, men and boys can learn about cryptocurrency from three guys named Michael, Adam, and Daniel, no last name given, and learn about just the general concept of,

quote, freelancing from Dylan and Colston, no last name given. Also, given that Andrew Tate's audience mostly includes young men and boys, don't worry, according to Hustler's University's frequently asked questions, it is not a problem if you are not a legal adult, because they have plenty of young guys inside of Hustler's University who are below 18 and are pulling in several thousand dollars a month. Do you have access to the internet? That's all you need. By the way, this is a little bit nitpicky, but I just have to say it. On the Hustlers University website frequently asked questions, it says that you do not need any money to start because most of the Hustlers university students are doing freelance work and that freelance work does not require any money to do.

Take it from an actual honest-to-god freelancer. This is just incorrect financial advice. You absolutely need money to freelance. And when their tax bill comes, I hope the people who were told that they need $0 to freelance, are not surprised when the government expects him to pay self-employment taxes. So again, you can see how he's kind of praying on people who might not have a lot of financial literacy or media literacy, and it's awful. And it gets worse because guess what? The entire thing is basically a pyramid scheme. Like most pyramid schemes, the courses aren't really the thing. The thing is getting others to sign up for the courses. Students of the program got a commission for convincing other dupes to join via affiliate marketing.

So just like Lou LaRoe and every other MLM scam that somebody from your high school messaged you about on Facebook who was all like, Hey, hon, have you ever thought about starting your own business? I think you would really slay at it. It's a scam. And honestly, probably a lucrative one. According to The Daily Beast, the program had some of, 109,000 members before its closure. And this is actually why you might know who Tate is,

because Tate specifically told his students to flood social media with videos of his content to promote his scam university. According to Hope Not Hate, a UK-based advocacy group that uses research to challenge mistrust and racism, Tate tells his supporters they can earn significant sums by sharing his videos.

In one podcast, he claimed that a 16-year-old Hustler University student was making 45,000 pounds a month from publishing his clips on the TikTok, which is basically how he gamified the program. Even though he's banned from TikTok, his content is still really prevalent there because his students just flood the space with his content. And I think he definitely is someone who needs social media.

He's just gaming the algorithms because he knows that algorithms specifically boost inflammatory content. They will always give content that is inflammatory or divisive more engagement. Andrew Tate was banned from Twitter back in 2017 over a thread commenting on Harvey Weinstein, where he said, quote, if you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility. I'm not saying it's okay you got raped. And TikTok took down Andrew Tate's account for breaking its policies regarding, quote, content that attacks, threatens, incites violence against or otherwise dehumanizes an individual or group based on attributes including sex. This is what a TikTok spokesperson told the Washington Post. He was also kicked off Facebook and Instagram for violating the rules around dangerous organizations and individuals. But as always, let's not give the platforms too much credit. Pretty much whenever they decide to remove somebody who is dangerous from their platform or make any kind of policy change like this, it's typically because of the work of organizers who have been pushing them behind the scenes, and this time it's no different.

Hope not Hate filed a petition for platforms to drop Andrew Tate and has been monitoring him for years. So great job to all the organizers who did the work behind the scenes to make this happen. But also, what we learned from how Alex Jones uses Facebook, you might remember that Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened so that even after Alex Jones was banned from Facebook, he carved out a loophole so that other people could still post his content on the platform. Even though Tate has been banned from these platforms, it might not actually even really matter if his whole thing is having other people, his students, post his content. on his behalf. And I also should just probably note that in April, the Daily Beast reported that Andrew Tate's house in Romania was raided

as part of an investigation into crimes of human trafficking in rape. Tate lives in Romania, and in a now-deleted YouTube video, he said that 40% of the reason why he moved there is because Romanian police were less likely to pursue sexual assault allegations. So, yeah, you tell me.

And to me, Andrew Tate represents the mainstreaming of really violent dangerous ideas and rhetoric, and those things, you know, not just being fringe, but flooding popular social media apps like TikTok. Tate is also treated like a thought leader. He's given a huge platform by popular podcasts like Barstool, which gives him a huge audience of a young man and boys, and hosts who really don't push back on any of the dangerous things that he's saying. And overall, like I've said time and time again, these people are all scam artists. They do not care about their audience, they do not care about the men and boys that they're talking to,

they do not care about the students of their so-called universities. To them, these men and boys and their pain and loneliness and anger is just a tool that can be exploited and weaponized to make more cash. It is the most cynical, exploitative shit in the world, and it works. Listen, to be clear, I am not against people asking tough questions and having the thorny, meaty, conversations about relationships, sex, and gender. In fact, I believe that we need more people spearheading those conversations in meaningful and thoughtful ways. But Andrew Tate is not actually interested in men and boys

having healthy relationships because people who are in healthy relationships do not send over $50 a month to a charlatan to teach them how to be high-value successful men. People like Tate need to keep their audience of men and boys angry. They need to stoke their feelings of love. loneliness and inadequacy and anchor and tell them to keep pointing those feelings at women so they keep shelling over more money. So this is my call to everyone listening. If you have a young man or

boy in your life, talk to them about what kind of content they're consuming. Talk to them about what they think about women and girls. And you honestly might be surprised. And it really, really matters. The implications are huge. Here's how Laura Bates, author of men who hate women, put it during our interview. We've never really seen it because we're at kind of hovering on the edge of the first real generation coming of age who have lived their whole lives on social media. We have this kind of unique political moment that never really gets picked up on this. I find it wild that we're living at this moment in history. It's never happened before and will never happen again. And yet it's never really discussed where a generation of non-digital natives is parenting and educating a

generation of digital natives. And there is this chasm there, this huge gap in culture and understanding of what their world is like, what the day-to-day landscape of their online world is like amongst parents who grew up in a pre-internet age. And that generation will be coming of age. And what will that look like when our political representatives are being drawn from a generation who have literally grown up with the sheer daily bombardment of racism and misogyny and transphobia that comes with living your life on the internet in the way that young people do today. And I don't think we'll know what that looks like until we get there. And I think when we do it will be a shock. But for now, Andrew Tate, good riddance. And if this means I have to

see one last video of a guy wearing sunglasses inside and smoking a cigar on my 4U page, I'll take it. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoody.com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Edited by Joey Pat.

Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends.

Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your...

Podcasts. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world, like, I can do anything.

I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One. Founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened.

That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories,

their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlaise on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human.