Teenagers as young as 13 could view misogynistic Andrew Tate videos on YouTube, report finds
Researchers from the US-based Center for Countering Digital Hate set up accounts purporting to be 13-year-old boys and found the videos from the rightwing influencer, whose own YouTube account was banned in 2022, were accessible to those accounts in the US and the UK, meaning they would also have likely been accessible in Australia.
Their report analysed nearly 1,900 videos of Tate from YouTube between May 2024 and May 2025, and filtered them down to the 100 most-viewed videos containing misogyny, accounting for nearly 54m views on the site.
In one video, Tate says: 'Nowadays it's gotten so fucked up – you got the men and the women, the husband and wife, all together on the same table. The men are trying to have a conversation, some dude's wife fucking pipes up.'
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In another video, Tate says: 'Have a solid bottom bitch, if you have one girl who truly is out … and is on your side, and you can use her to control other girls, it's so much easier.'
Some of the videos had ads running on them, meaning YouTube receives revenue for views of the videos.
YouTube said it had removed hundreds of thousands of Tate videos since the ban, and terminated thousands of accounts that had sought to circumvent the original decision and attempted to upload content from the banned creator.
A spokesperson said it had not received all videos from the centre to check for a breach of company policies.
'But as with all terminated users, not all content that features Andrew Tate will be removed. Only 11 videos from the CCDH report were shared with us to review – the majority have been removed for violating our terms of service, and we've terminated a number of the featured channels.'
Some of the videos cited in the report had since been removed for violating YouTube policies, or had their accounts deleted.
The chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, said YouTube, like all platforms, is 'incredibly poor at enforcing its own rules, even when we notify them about it.'
He said the head of the Metropolitan police in London had recently told him about the growth of teenager-on-teenager violence against girls.
'That is being dubbed the Tate phenomenon, because what we're seeing is a significant increase. We're seeing significant evidence around the world of young men moving to sort of extremist and in particular, far-right politics,' he said.
Ahmed said figures like Tate are grooming young people into extreme positions, and while he said the Center for Countering Digital Hate had not advocated for a social media ban, he 'can understand why governments feel it's necessary in the absence of platforms that are taking real steps to create safer platforms for children'.
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'Every time we test platforms on their claims to have implemented one or another policy or scheme to make platforms safer for kids, we find them to be either deeply flawed or actually completely absent in reality.'
Previous studies on the availability of misogynistic content on YouTube, have also found the platform recommends such content quickly to young male accounts. A study in April this year found that on 10 blank profiles set up as young boys or men, YouTube would recommend manosphere content more than any other type, accounting for 61.5% of the content recommended.
A 2022 Australian study found similar results.
A war of words erupted between the Alphabet-owned platform and the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, last week when the online safety regulator recommended to the communications minister, Anika Wells, that YouTube not be excluded from the ban under rules currently in development ahead of the ban being in place in December.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Monday did not directly answer a question on whether he would support including YouTube in the ban, but said there was 'greater consciousness of the damage that social media can do on the mental health of young people' and more needed to be done to tackle the violence against women and children.
'We've got to also consider what is going on with young men and boys being exposed to graphic material which does not promote healthy relationships, can often promote a violent perception and misogynistic attitude towards women,' he said.
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