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(BIRDSONG)

(TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

(WHITE NOISE)

Microsoft launched a new artificial
intelligence powered chatbot

to talk with you on Twitter.

Artificial intelligence chatbot
named Tay was designed to respond

to questions and conversations
on Twitter

with the personality
of a teenage girl.

MAX: In 2016, Microsoft launched
this chatbot called Tay.

The idea was that by chatting
with users on Twitter,

it would learn
what human conversation is like.

Was based on machine learning,

which is a kind of artificial
intelligence.

What it was doing was learning

what is the sequence of words,
the specific types of sentiment

and emotions that are going to
be most effective on social media?

Within 24 hours, this spot had
become like an alt-right pro-Trump
Nazi.

Humans working for Microsoft
had to intervene when Tay,

their chatty I bot, started tweeting
some pretty bad Hitler stuff.

She took on a rather
offensive racist tone,

a lot of messages about genocide
and the Holocaust.

Microsoft immediately started
hitting delete on her comments.

Part of that was bad actors
deliberately training it

by feeding it extreme content.

But mostly the Tay bot
was just reproducing how

people on social media
were interacting.

Nobody gives a damn about men.

This is smoking gun
1 in 85 trillion quadrillion.

I mean, this, this...

We are living in
an attention economy.

People are encouraged and emboldened
to become more outrageous,

more characterful, more dramatic,
more offensive than ever.

They're skanks. (LAUGHS)

I mean, that's what they
fucking are. They're skanks.

Deport and step up support, OK?
Alright?

MAX: Because of the way
that social media works,

it can be just someone
from total obscurity.

And they will get lifted up
by these platforms,

because it is what the systems want,
and they know how to cultivate that.

Strap on an AK 47
and gun down innocent people.

And it's exactly what
happened with Andrew Tate.

I believe that a man
should be in charge.

I believe your woman should obey you.

HARRIET: The mainstream media start
to pay attention, and you see

characters rise up who might not
have become famous otherwise.

One of the most infamous men
in the world, Andrew Tate's

misogynistic tirades have been
viewed billions of times online.

Any man who's relatively capable
as a man will always be able

to whoop your ass, rape you,
strangle you, kill you.

Anything he wants to do.

BRIANNA: We probably should have
seen this coming.

A really good question to ask
yourself as an engineer is how

can the thing you built be used by
a really, really terrible person?

It's not something
we ask ourselves very often.

MATTHEW: You have unbelievable
corporate knowledge about what

their products are doing
in complete total disregard

and elevation of profits
over public safety.

A. TATE: Getting the girl,

fucking the girl is the
first 10% of the game.

JOE: There's complicity
all over the place.

Social media platforms have
to bear a huge responsibility

for allowing that content to reach
billions of people around the world.

Then we have to ask
what about wider society?

Why is it that young men are
finding a voice in Andrew Tate?

Why are we not having
those conversations

and getting those things right?

The big question, I guess, is
who's to blame for Andrew Tate?

(TENSE MUSIC)

So as you were saying,
you're blowing up on the internet.

I've conquered all of the internet.
All of the internet.It's mine.

(TYRES SQUEALING)

MAX: Someone like Andrew Tate
is not an accident.

He doesn't just happen.

CROWD: Fuck Instagram!

A. TATE: Fuck Instagram!

If you want to understand where he
comes from, you have to understand

how these social media platforms
were first built,

why they were built that way,
and what they were designed to do.

(ELECTRONIC CRACKLING)

Social media first goes wide
in the early mid 2000s,

and it's people who,
for whatever reason,

are looking to socialise
through their computer.

It's undergraduates.
It's a lot of young men.

It's a lot of adolescent boys.

All I want is a computer.
Now hold on, Dad.

It's just $849 for all of this.

Parents tend to spend more
on boys than they do on girls.

So computer makers,

video game manufacturers
choose to market to boys.

(CRASHING SOUNDS)

These hyper masculine
male characters.

Well, how could you let that happen?

MAX: You're going to
go save the princess.

And it is something that
is like super traditional.

MAN: (IN GAME) Give me some sugar.
Shake it baby.

Men are supposed to be strong
and masculine and dominant,

and women are supposed
to be submissive.

And that's the content
that dominates.

It's a lot of young men who were
looking for a place in the world,

and were trying to figure out
who they were and how they fit in.

That gets built into the very
early social platforms which form

the basis of internet culture.

So by the time the rest of us join,

that is what- is what
it means to be online.

(ELECTRONIC CHIRPING)

WOMAN: What is the Facebook exactly?

It's an online directory
that connects people

through universities and colleges
through their social networks there.

REPORTER: On college campuses,
it's called the Facebook trance.

To everyone else, it's spending too
much time in front of your computer.

MAX: The way the platforms
used to operate,

you would have a profile page and
you would look at your profile page,

you would look at other people's
profile pages and they were, um,

pretty boring.

(MOUSE CLICKING)

Then Facebook introduced
the News Feed.

We believe that the best
personalised newspaper

should have a broad
diversity of content.

And here is the new design.

MAX: Instead of just going to
people's individual profile pages,

there was going to be
one centralised home page

that each user would have,

and it would show you
all of the activity

from all of your friends
in the network.

Anytime they joined a group,

they posted something that
would show up on this feed.

REPORTER: It's designed for the
way that we're all sharing today,

and the trends that
we see going forward.

MAX: Almost immediately
after launching the News Feed,

it filled with these groups
expressing outrage about it.

Groups called Against News Feed,

I Hate Facebook, I Hate News Feed,

Mark Zuckerberg Turn Off News feed.

And every time someone
joins one of these groups,

it pushes it all over again
to everyone else's news feeds.

More and more users
started joining these groups,

maybe not even because
they felt that rage,

but just because they see
everyone else joining it.

All of a sudden, user time
exploded like 600 and 700% growth.

Mark Zuckerberg looked at this and
he looked at the engagement numbers,

how much more time people
were spending on Facebook,

ironically expressing
outrage at Facebook.

And he said, this is it.
This is the gold mine.

And he was absolutely right.

These social media platforms
that copied Facebook survived.

Every other social network died out,

because this was the new way that
social media was going to operate.

As a young guy growing up,

every young boy wanted to be a
strong, tough, He-Man character.

And that was working out,
looking good on the TV,

flexing, pumping weights
and fighting.

To us, that was like
the ultimate man.

Andrew was a quiet, tall kid.
He was even shy.

Honestly, I didn't
think a lot of him.

(INDISTINCT ARENA CHATTER)

At first glance, a lot of the
guys look and size everyone up

and we thought, he looks soft,
you're going to beat him.

He was about 17/18
and he was fighting grown men.

He had a lot of balls.

When it's your first fight and
it's gruelling, you're in a cage,

it's locked.

Thousand people screaming,
smoky atmosphere.

Beers, people are a bit drunk.

Everyone's swearing.
"Get him up. Knock him out."

Scary.

And it was hard fight.

Andrew stuck in there.

(CHEERING, JEERING)

Some people can not just function

9 to 5 office jobs,
get drunk at the weekends.

That is not for some individuals
and it's not for me.

So I have to find something which
keeps me physically tired enough

to stop me going AWOL.

And mentally tired enough.
And I've chosen fighting.

I think the only thing
that could stop me fighting

is if I had enough money to
constantly entertain myself.

Unless I'm a billionaire, I need
something that keeps me focused and

keeps me occupied in life because I'm
not built to live a normal existence.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

I knew he was good.
I knew it was making waves.

You know, there weren't many
people in England that, sort of,

became an international
level fighter.

So, yeah, you sort of definitely
sort of, yeah, he was going places.

I think it's his overall character,
fighting style.

I think yeah, he's very different.

Hello, this is Andrew Tate.

I am the ISKA kick-boxing
world champion,

ISKA's world's most amazing person,
Enfusion finalist.

Funny, tall, muscly,
all around great guy.

Everyone loves me.

When I started my kickboxing brand,
I was living with fighters.

And Andrew was, sort of,
the big name on the circuit.

Because I'm one of the best
kickboxers in the world,

arguably the best,
especially in my own mind,

I would personally say that
I'm the best kickboxer ever,

Sidekick sponsor me...
I think he likes the sponsorships,

so it's a way of another reason
he could talk about himself.

And when I'm fighting, or
when I'm training, etcetera,

I use the equipment, I beat
everyone up and everyone thinks,

"Wow, Andrew's amazing, so we
need to try the same equipment."

I think he enjoyed, sort of
publicising himself, market himself.

Yeah, he just wanted to be heard
and I think he enjoyed it.

This is a magazine with me
on the front being amazing,

because I'm the best
kickboxer in the world.

He constantly just tries
to rub people up, you know,

I wanted that character
where a lot of other brands

probably wouldn't have
touched an Andrew Tate,

because I think it
could've been risky.

This is a world title,

and this means that I am the
best kickboxer in the world.

Now, because I'm so fucking cool,

I actually have two world
titles at two different weights.

So while you're best
in the world at nothing,

you're not even the best
in your town or anything,

I'm the best in the world.
Twice.

Andrew just wanted fame and fortune.
I think that's all he wanted.

You know, we all love money,

you know, and I think Andrew
wanted to just get rich.

You know, some of his fights he
might have been making five, ten

thousand pounds, maybe a bit more.

You can only be fighting
a few times a year.

He was literally fighting to earn.

You can't fight forever, you know?

Hello, I'm Andrew "King Cobra" Tate.

As you know,
I'm sponsored by Sidekick.

I am the four times...

Andrew started using
social media just for fun.

Two...

You know, I think he realised
he likes to sort of engaging,

people comment on it
and publicity, you know?

Yeah, but everyone liked the likes
back in them days, didn't they?

I find him funny, you know?
I don't think he had that many fans.

I know it seems like
a trivial thing to you,

as the world's most gorgeous man,
these things matter.

I don't know if I've upped my beauty,
if that's possible,

or slightly reduced my beauty
with my trampy beard.

(ELECTRONIC CHIRPING)

Around 2012, these social platforms
start undergoing this arms race for

who can get the most attention.

The owners of a small tech company
this morning are waking up

a billion dollars richer
than they were yesterday.

That's how much Facebook
is paying for Instagram.

Have you heard of it?

And that billion dollar price
tag puts it in a category that

makes it more valuable right
now than the New York Times,

Barnes and Noble.

Some of these companies that
we know much better as far...

The amount of human
attention is finite.

There are only so many
people in the world.

We only have so many
minutes in the day.

The social media companies,
they're competing against each other

for incremental seconds
and minutes of our attention.

They do it through the development
of these algorithms.

They start hiring up
all of the leading minds

and engineers
in artificial intelligence.

I'm Thomas Dimson.
I joined Instagram very early on.

There's like 15 engineers
responsible for 150 million people.

It's a product that is
growing out of control.

I introduced the Instagram
algorithm to change a platform

of hundreds of millions of people
from a completely chronological feed

to something where
the platform controls

the distribution of content.

What is an algorithm?

Algorithm, in computer science,
means a programme.

A programme that executes
something, basically,

a method of doing something,
a recipe.

In the context of social media,

the algorithms distribute
content on the network.

So I make a post, where does it go?
Who sees it?

It's like something completely
out of your control,

completely out of
your understanding.

Only the platform can
really understand it.

Both Twitter and Instagram
started with an algorithm

for distributing content,
but a very simple one.

Goes to your friends in the
order in which it was posted.

(TWITTER NOTIFICATION WHISTLE)

If you tweet something,
your friend follows you,

The moment you tweet, it's going
to be at the top of their feed.

What happens over time in social
media is that you start to get

a lot of non-friends
on these platforms.

Influencers, celebrities,
all this sort of stuff.

What is their incentive?

Their incentive is to post
all the time, because every

one of their followers will see
their post at the top of their feed.

They want as many people to
see their content as possible.

Everyone's trying
to game the system.

(ELECTRONIC CHIRPING)

It's making people have a bad
experience on the platform.

So you really have to take control
over distribution, as a platform.

It's like a must.

That's where machine learning
comes in. That's what it does.

It looks at content, looks at
behaviour, it looks at whatever,

and then makes a decision.

What you're modelling is a human.

Human psychology.
What do people respond to?

Over time, they get more
and more machine learned,

more and more machine learned.

So a person has less
and less control.

The platform has more
and more control.

We start controlling what you see.

The problem is what
people think they want

versus what people respond to
is different.

It's surprising how much you
can predict people's behaviour

that's going to be
a tabloid every time.

A. TATE: One... Two...

(BABY FUSSING)

MAN: Andrew! Come here, boy.

You're never too big for Daddy.

You come here to Daddy, boy.

I love my baby!

WOMAN:
You were so happy to be a daddy.

A. TATE: I was- I was
raised for competence,

and I was raised for excellence.
Come here, dude.

I'm named after my dad
with the same name,

Emory Andrew Tate.

He was a super unique individual,
it's hard for me to even explain.

You have to imagine a big,
physically dominating, dangerous guy

who's a chess genius.

When you're wired like he is,
everyone is a moron.

My father certainly had rage.

He got diagnosed with narcissistic
personality disorder,

and I do believe he had it.

He's also quite a morbid man.

He said,
"Are you prepared for my death?"

We were just like, "What?"

Like, he'd talk about dying,

he'd talk about me
being the oldest son,

he'd talk about me
having to carry the torch.

He's talking about my
responsibilities and duties.

He's talking about the fact
that I need to evolve

and be a better version of him.
He talked about these things a lot.

I knew I couldn't just
be some normal guy.

One...

COMMENTATOR: It's only something
about Andrew Tate.

Andrew Tate, arrogant.
He's brash. He's bold.

He knows what to expect.

Before influencer culture,
we had reality TV culture,

and that was how ordinary,
everyday people might seek fame.

By 2016,

reality TV was almost
a clear pathway to stardom.

I'm Andrew Tate, I'm 29 years old

and I'm a four times
kickboxing world champion.

I see myself as smarter than average.

I was a chess champion from a very
young age, from the age of three.

Everyone wants to be famous.

Everyone thinks that becomes
money and stuff.

He wanted to be famous.
He wants to be a celebrity.

Sometimes you're shocked
by what you see.

What people do to become famous.

MAN: You didn't even
tell us your fucking name!

A. TATE: I have a reason.

So why don't you
sit down and shut up?

Alright, if that's
how you want to be...

Get a fucking glove on
and go do the dishes, mate.

Make yourself useful in
this house or something.

If that's how you wanna be
it's your decision.

You haven't even said your name!
My name's Andrew.

To get chosen for Big Brother,
for our series in 2016,

88,000 people applied. 88,000.

So by the time you get
to actually get on Big Brother,

It means a lot, regardless of
whether they admit that or not.

(ARGUING OVER EACH OTHER)

Andrew caused absolute mayhem.

He fitted the villain role,
the headstrong role,

the role, "I really don't care what
you feel like or how you think."

Genuinely, eight of you
are the pissed off me.

I'm telling you,
I'm telling you what I've seen.

From what I've seen, eight of you...

Snakes, you know, snakes.
Saying to someone...

I thought that a lot of viewers
would watch him and either love him

or hate him, but that didn't really
matter once they were speaking about
him.

The certain things that I've
seen indicate a certain thing.

I know they're probably not true.
That's why I've said it.

That's why I've said it.
(ARGUING OVER EACH OTHER)

MAN: Chill out, man.
WOMAN: Yeah, it does...

I don't care if nobody
down there likes me.

I'm sure, by now, everyone's already
pre-decided they don't like me,

and that's fine.
I know where I genuinely am.

So I know I'm the most intelligent
person in this house.

I know the most capable person
in this house. Fact.

WOMAN:
'It's just, it's so hard for us

just for you to come
in here and say that.'

I was instructed to instil fear
and paranoia.

I was here five minutes.

Fair enough. I took a bullet
because I'm a man and I'm not afraid.

'I paid attention to who tried
to physically intimidate me

and who didn't. Who was...'

I mean, it's all very
dramatic, isn't it?.

I'm going to become the
most hated man in the world.

Makes sense, let's go.

(LAUGHS) He is psychic!

Wow!

Oh my God. (LAUGHS)

(SOFTLY) Fucking hell!

He didn't spend a lot of
time in the house at all.

And about 12 days into the show,

Big brother spoke on the Tannoy,
like, intercom speakers.

TANNOY: 'This is Big Brother.

Due to events in the outside world,

Andrew has had to leave
the Big Brother house.'

(GASPING)

'His suitcases are in the storeroom.

Would housemates collect them,
pack up his belongings

and return the cases to the
storeroom as soon as possible?'

That was it.

Oh my God, that's the first one out!

First time I came
across him was 2016

when he got kicked off
Big Brother.

There was a kind of flurry of
newspaper articles about what

seemed to be this relatively
unsavoury character

engaging in violence against women.

One has a video that showed him
hitting a woman.

I didn't say the word "listen".
Did I say "listen"?

Did I say listen?
WOMAN: No.

Look at the camera.
Did I say "listen"?No!

Did I say (BLEEP) to you?
Did I say it?(SOBS) No!

Did I say it? (BELT CRACKS)

At the time, he was just one of
many stories of a reality TV star

doing something awful.

Why are you getting hit?

He offered a defence that many men
who engage in violence against women

seem to offer.
This was a consensual sexual act.

Yeah, it's just what we used to do.
It was just pure game.

He's a great guy.
He would never hurt anyone.

That was the first time that he
popped onto a kind of national

radar in the UK,

because it was widely
covered by the newspapers.

(OMINOUS MUSIC)

Tate really does subscribe to
the idea that there is no such

thing as bad publicity.

He courts controversy.

He was already tapping into
his awareness that provocation

and outrage
could be a passport to fame.

This is the persona
that he's nurturing.

One that would eventually benefit
him greatly in the world of social
media.

(ELECTRONIC CHIRPING)

You think of the internet
as forward looking, right?

You wouldn't think that the thing
that would come out of this would

be this super traditionalist,
regressive,

backward looking sense of gender.

But the thing that, in a lot
of ways, drives social media

is niche communities and subcultures
organised around misogyny,

around conspiracy theories,
around hatred and fear of the other.

In 2014, a lot of these groups
started to come together into

its first big expression,

and that is the thing that
we ended up calling GamerGate.

GamerGate.

It's a story about sexism
in the world of video gaming,

with all the elements
of a Hollywood script.

An online hate mob
referred to as GamerGate.

This conspiracy theory, GamerGate,
said that video game developers

and video game journalists were
secretly in league with each other

to feminise video games,
and therefore to subjugate men

for whom this is one of the
last refuges of being real men.

REPORTER: What started as an
online spat about the ethics
of gaming journalism

quickly escalated into
a full blown culture war.

Feminists in video games were
the big villains of the moment,

on social media, because users
felt like this was a safe space

for them that was being taken away.
Grab a whore and have a good time.

Let go of me! Please don't!

We really just want women
portrayed in a better way.

What we want is for women to
simply be portrayed as people.

We wanted some very common sense
reforms to include women and to

give us a fair shot at participating
in our field the way that men do.

But what happened was I became
the face of, like, the feminists.

"They're trying to come and
take over your video games."

Now the women calling for change
in this multibillion dollar virtual
industry

are facing a very real backlash,
including death threats.

GamerGate was the start
of how we argue online.

We got rape threats, death threats.

We had our careers targeted,
identity theft.

We really saw these dark
corners of the internet really

start to organise and
focus on taking people down.

REPORTER: The threats came
through a Twitter account

using the name Death to Brianna.

Tweeting out Brianna's home address,

threatening to sexually assault
and then murder her.

I had people shooting videos,
wearing a skull mask and holding

a knife up to the camera,

talking about how they
were going to murder me.

They knew how to shut women up that
were saying things that they didn't
like.

This was, swear to God, warfare.

REPORTER: Threats on Twitter
even forced Brianna Wu

to leave her Boston area home
after her address was made public.

I'll never forget this
until the day I die.

I get this anonymous tweet
and it says,

"Guess what, bitch,
I know where you live."

It gives my home address.

It says, you know,
"Your dead mutilated corpse is

going to be on the front
page of Jezebel tomorrow.

There isn't jack shit
you can do about it.

If you have children,
they are going to die."

Why do you think there is such
a visceral response against you?

I think you're seeing
some very insecure guys,

like feeling very threatened.
And, you know,

lashing out at us,
being in their space.

(COMPUTER KEYS CLACKING)

The manosphere is an umbrella term

for a collective of
misogynists online.

It started really as a place
for men to gather who were feeling

disenfranchised and really
evolved into splinter groups.

Incels, pickup artists,
men going their own way,

but aligned with the idea of
male victimhood and misogyny.

They're skanks.

(LAUGHS) I mean, that's what
they fucking are. They're skanks.

Nobody gives a damn about men.

If you're a good looking guy,
you get to flirt all you want,

but if you're an ugly guy,
you don't get to ask anybody out.

If you're a seven or below,

you don't have any rights
under this new feminist agenda.

Come on, give me a break.

Some of these groups,
particularly the pick up artists,

were recommending quite
unscrupulous psychological means

of manipulating women,
of luring them in.

Give a girl four drinks,
hit her with some decent game,

have an apartment that is close
by and you have a winning formula,

OK, for banging a lot of girls.

A lot of the manosphere was
sharing ideas similar to this.

Also just hatred against women,
conspiracies that women were out

to get men, that men were
the real victims of society.

RECORDING: 'You are a disposable
tool for female enrichment.'

MAN: You know one of these.
(WHISTLES) You go to jail.

That's a three year felony.

A large number of people who've
engaged with that sort of content

genuinely do believe there was
a conspiracy around this world

that is designed to control them,
take away their freedom.

And of course,
Andrew Tate taps into that.

ANDREW TATE:
It's gone so far

to the point where a man
can't yell at a woman.

That's domestic violence.

See, you can get in the house
to your girl

sucking your best friend's dick.

You can't scream at her.
You get arrested.

That's what they've done to men now.
That's the world we now live in.

It's 2015, he moves
from the UK out to Romania,

where he's making YouTube videos,
like The Hateful Tate stuff,

these ranting style videos that he
would produce on particular topics.

There are real role models
out there in the world.

There's real men out there
you should look up to

and you should respect.

The style he's trying to mimic
was that kind of YouTube style

which was quite popular at the time.

I'm from the generation
when WWE was what everyone watched,

it was the thing.
And he just gave her a beer,

she doesn't like the beer.
He's like, "Have a beer."

She's like,
"It doesn't taste very nice."

Instead of going,
"Oh, I hope you're OK."

Stunner! Boom!

"What do you mean
you don't like the beer?"

Bang!
Now you're out cold, bitch.

He's this relatively marginal figure
that's known a little bit

in the kickboxing world.

He's got some infamy
through the Big Brother period.

But he's not exploding
on social media at that stage.

You know what they should do?

You should have a
license to Facebook.

You have to apply

and prove you're not a fucking
shit-munching dickhead.

He constantly jumps around,

looking around for what's going
to get the most traction.

The continuity is that he wants
to be rich. He wants to be famous.

He wants to be powerful.

Fuck the arts. The only art that
matters in this world is pimping,

and I've got a PHD.
Pimping Hoes Degree.

He would brag about
ostensibly owning the term pimp.

I don't think pimp is a bad term.

And he had this camming business,
or this webcam business

where he would have young women
essentially engaging in sex work

on the internet for him, and he was
taking large chunks of the money.

WOMAN: The girls with the Instagram
pages featuring travel,

money, and experiences
are very often using a webcam

to achieve this lifestyle.

No-one really knows how much money
he was actually making.

It seems that
he was making lots of money,

but he constantly lies
about everything,

so it's very difficult to say.

But he was certainly making a large
amount of money from engaging

in various forms or getting people
to engage in various forms

of sex work for him. And not only
that, he says, if you follow me,

you can have exactly the same thing.

Do what you want,
try not to get arrested,

make some cash and spend it,
cos soon you're going to be dead.

(UNCLEAR)

REPORTER: Gamergate.

It's a story about sexism
in the world of video gaming...

We take for granted
that social media is such a dark

and divisive force in our world,

it's easy to forget that
there was a time when...

there was a lot of optimism
around social media,

you know, it was
connecting humanity.

A way that you
could instantly connect

with something that was going on
on the other side of the world...

(CROWD CLAMOURING)

As a reporter
writing about international affairs

when social media first got started,
I loved it.

The Arab Spring in 2011
had been broadcast

and organised significantly
on Facebook and Twitter.

REPORTER: They call it
the Arab Spring.

Protests that began ten years ago
in Tunisia spread across the region.

REPORTER 2: The word of the protests
spread on Facebook and Twitter...

REPORTER 3: A sea of people,
as millions of Egyptians ended

a 30-year-old rule
with peaceful protests.

We saw its potential in the world,
and it's transformative. It's huge.

What we thought we had
was a version of social media

that was unadulterated,

that was really
allowing people to connect.

But that is not the version
of social media

that we are ever going to get,

because these are publicly
traded companies

and they have to follow
the incentives of the market,

which are to give us
Andrew Tates and not Arab Springs.

REPORTER: Tens of thousands of
people are waiting in line

across the country as Apple releases
the new iPhone 7 today.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)

Oh.
(CHEERING)

Here we have the brand-new iPhone 7!

Yeah.

Alright, alright.

Because social media is free to use,

all of their money
comes from advertising.

And that means
that their overwhelming incentive

is to get you, the user,

to spend more time on the platforms,

see more ads that they can sell
against your eyeballs.

To the platform, you know,
getting a lot of video plays

is worth a lot of money.

So in 2012 YouTube set this goal
for themselves:

they want to multiply the amount
of time that people spend

on their platform in the aggregate,
by a factor of ten.

They have 100 million hours
of daily watch time on YouTube,

and they want to bring
that up to a billion.

There is this YouTube engineer.

This guy named Guillaume Chaslot,

who was really alarmed
by what he was seeing.

They were amping up this system
and making it more sophisticated

and more powerful at figuring out
what's going to make people

stay on the platform.

I'm Guillaume Chaslot,
I did a PhD in AI,

and when I worked at Google

in a project on YouTube
and advertisement.

I was a software engineer.

They want one billion hours
spent on YouTube.

They wanted it to grow
as fast as possible.

An AI is just an algorithm
that's quite complex,

but it has a very simple goal.
In case of YouTube,

your goal was just
to maximise watch time.

Rewind YouTube style.

YouTube is making
billions in revenue...

(GRUNTS)

..so even a tiny increase
over watch time

generates automatically
millions and millions per year.

Watch Next AI
was driving the traffic.

All the power is in the AI.

You have billions
of videos on YouTube.

The AI, out of this billion videos,
chooses 20 videos to show you.

The algorithm is optimised
for watch time.

People will spend more time
on the platform

have more watch impact
than other people.

So it means even a small community
that spends a massive amount of time

on the platform

can be recommended a lot by the
algorithm, because the algorithm

is going to try to convince
other people to join this community.

That's what happened with flat-Earth
conspiracy theory.

We don't think the world is flat,
we know that the world is flat

because it is the way...
It is a law, actually.

It's a law of physics.
A law of God, a law of nature.

Flat Earth is insanely stupid,

but the people who start to believe
in this conspiracy theory

start to spend
a lot of time on the platform,

because they believe
everybody else is lying to them.

Only YouTube tells the truth.

So they spend six, seven,
eight hours a day on YouTube,

watching more and more videos,
seeing the same thing.

The algorithm is like,
"Fantastic. This is a gold mine.

This is content
everybody should watch."

So the YouTube algorithm
recommended flat Earth

hundreds of millions of times.

It is a law, actually.
It's a law of physics.

It is a law, actually.
It's a law of physics.

(VOICE ECHOES)

For the algorithm,
it doesn't matter

if what you recommend
is true or not.

It doesn't care.

Obama and Hillary
both smell like sulphur.

There is a predator race,
which takes a reptilian form...

If we had statistics from YouTube,
we could actually have seen

these small conspiracies
becoming bigger and bigger,

but we don't.

I had concerns about the content
that I was seeing recommended.

People told me, who am I to judge?

"If people watch this,
they like it."

But at some point you're responsible
of what you're recommending.

MAN: Everything's politicised.
Everyone's piling on.

They now say the American flag
needs to be banned...

MAN 2: ..humanity into a slave race.
They demand human sacrifice.

They wanted to do to algorithms
that give more control to the user.

When I talked to my boss
about that, he said,

"I wouldn't work on this project
if I were you" in a kind of nice way

and kind of threatening way
in the same time.

And so for the next few months,
I stepped.

Then I started again.

One week later, I was fired.

If you look at what social media
was rewarding and incentivising

ten years ago,

all of it points to someone
like Andrew Tate.

Strap on an AK 47 and gun down...

Deport, step up support...

..do whatever I can
to help save the high res.

The platforms take
certain aspects of human nature

and put a car battery to it.

Divisiveness, conflict,
tribalism, extremism,

outrage against social change.

There's this huge community
on social networks

with this sense of, we're going
to do something to fight back.

Well, I think the only card she has
is the woman's card.

She's got nothing else going.

And, frankly,
if Hillary Clinton were a man,

I don't think
she'd get 5% of the vote.

CROWD: (CHANTING)
Lock her up!

2016 was a big wake up moment
for a lot of us,

because we all had this vague sense

that Trump reflected something
about the social web.

A lot of the lies that he told
had proliferated on social media.

His style of politics
had been really successful there.

He had really not just succeeded
on the social platforms

but the social platforms
had given rise to something

really big and seismic.

Trump is an extension
of the exact same misogyny

and just raw anger
that formed Gamergate.

It is all the same impulse
that some people

belong in positions of power
and other people don't.

(APPLAUSE)

Hillary Clinton was the Antichrist
in these faces, right?

She's the final boss of feminism
that they wanted to stop.

That was, really, the theme
for that election.

Social security payroll
contribution will go up,

as will Donald's, assuming he can't
figure out how to get out of it.

But what we want to do
is to replenish...

Such a nasty woman.

..by making sure...

You can tie all of these events
that are happening in our democracy

in America,
right back to Gamergate.

Steve Bannon looked at Gamergate

and understood it was the way
to radicalise people.

Talk out his strategy
to get Trump elected, he said,

you bring them in through Gamergate
or something like it,

and you turn them on to Trump
and politics.

He understood that igniting people
over these cultural wedge issues

that threaten their identity,

you could then take them and turn
them into Trump supporters.

CROWD: (CHANTING)
USA!

REPORTER: There was
an almost surreal quality

to Donald Trump's victory.

A billionaire businessman turned
champion of the working people,

sweeping to power,
stunning the nation and the world.

The fact that I have such power

in terms of numbers with Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, etc,

I think it helped me win.

Make America Great Again
is not that different

to Make Video Games Great Again,
right?

It's this really
regressive ideology,

"Let's go backwards,
let's protect this.

Let's stop these people
that don't respect us enough."

MAX: It is very easy
to dismiss Donald Trump

as just this reality TV star
who had managed to get a weird,

super engaged social media fandom.

What a lot of us realise is that
through the power of these platforms

and the people who have learned
how to manipulate them,

those online niche communities
really can be used

in ways that can steer elections,

even help elect a president.

JOE: By 2017, social media
has almost become ubiquitous,

especially for younger audiences.

Vast numbers of users across a range
of mainstream platforms

is having a massive influence
on societal debates.

MAX: Social media companies
marketed themselves

like this is the new
digital civilisation.

This is where humanity happens.

The home of all politics,
all human interaction.

And now everything can happen
through a social platform.

And it really does change a lot.

For example, in 2017
you have the MeToo movement.

The huge moment which showed that
things that rise on social media

that are driven by its users
can bring real political change,

can really change society.

The way the hashtag
exploded on Twitter

shows us that,
while we all thought we were alone,

we're not.

But also what happens
as part of that is some people,

like Andrew Tate,
learn that they can exploit that

and kind of hook onto that
for their own benefit.

New York Times reported today

Weinstein is accused of sexually
harassing female employees

and actors for decades.

In the wake of the MeToo movement

and the allegations against
Harvey Weinstein,

Andrew Tate tweeted that women
should bear responsibility

for being raped.

He is stoking controversy.

He is taking up the mantle
of being a provocateur.

He's saying, "I'm speaking
truth to power."

Of course, this is just a tactic
to gain attention.

And it worked.

In some senses,

Tate's message kind of comes of age

through that Me Too period.

He'll find there is an audience.

It might not be a kind
of massive audience,

but it's an audience that's
going to be really receptive

to his kind of hypermasculine,
no apologies,

misogyny-style content.

There is an audience of angry
young men on the internet

that want to consume that,
no doubt he sees that.

My name is Joule.

Online, I was known as the
Sartorial Shooter until I was doxed,

so now I can actually use my name.

I'd say outside of the family,
I'm the one who spent the most time

with him, hundreds of times
over the last five years.

When I met them in 2018, they wanted
a bit more professional image.

He'd left the West.
He was living in Romania.

They were living a pretty good life.

The cars, the mountains,

the food, you know,
attractive ladies everywhere.

I said, "I have weapons and tactics
training company in Ukraine.

Would you like to come and train?
Pretty much instantly said yes, yes.

So the weapons here,
you can get comfortable cocking it.

Obviously I'll do it, but it doesn't
go off unless it's popped, right?

Yeah, but it will be...

We trained together
for three days.

We started talking about the world.
He said, in the West, at the moment,

you can see the way the relationship
between a man and a woman

is being interrupted,
traditional dynamics

are being effectively suppressed
and labelled as bad,

and that's impacting the way
relationships are formed,

which then impacts
the way children are raised.

On the macro level,
that impacts society as a whole.

We're seeing some sort
of moral decline

or some sort of breakdown of values
in the West.

He was saying
the West is a failed society.

To be honest,
I'm inclined to agree with him.

You could even argue that most
of the masculine role models

have been purged
from modern day culture.

We don't have
our old school cowboys anymore.

We don't have those gruff
masculine figures.

And so I believe a lot of
young men are looking

for that masculine guidance.
Tate definitely delivers on that.

I said, guys, I think you've got
a very important message

to get out to the world, and I'd
love to support you however I can.

RICHARD: Men like Andrew Tate
are trying to model

a certain kind of masculinity.

In his case, of course, a very
misogynist brand of masculinity.

And there are millions of boys
and young men

who don't have a great answer
to the question of like,

what does it mean to be a man today?
What does it mean to grow up?

What does mature masculinity
look like?

How do I go from being a boy
to a man? What am I supposed to do?

MAN: Andrew!
You ain't never...

The most vulnerable boys
and the most vulnerable men

are the ones who've had
difficult childhoods.

WOMAN: You were so happy
to beat your daddy? Yes.

I think it's inevitable
if you've had something of

a broken set of models
of masculinity yourself,

then of course you're on a search,

of course you're desperately
searching,

and longing, in some ways.

The script has been torn up,
to a very large extent,

for both men and women, but we've
replaced the script for women

and said it's all about
empowerment and independence,

and "You go girl," etc.

And, I mean, it still moves me

that that's changed so quickly,
but what are we saying to boys now?

We're kind of just
leaving them to it.

That's not a great recipe
because they then go online.

How to be a man. What am I supposed
to do? How do I get a date?

How do I get a girlfriend?
How do I make money?

Actually, what
they're really asking is,

"Who the hell am I supposed to be?"

HADEN: Thing that I think about
being a man, a true masculine man,

the number one thing is duty.

It's your duty to protect
your woman.

It's your duty to take
care of your family.

It's your duty to provide
for your family.

It's your duty to be a good man
to your wife.

It's your duty to be good
to your parents.

There's so many duties
that we have as a man.

ARHAM: I feel like society downplays
how difficult it is to be a man.

And I say this as a man
who has experienced adversity.

Men are often unable
to reach out for help.

Your mentality of growing up
into being a man is telling you

a certain way to live,

but then the world is telling you
that that way of living is wrong,

or the way you think is wrong,
or you not calling somebody

by their proper pronoun or something
is just wrong.

I'm surprised of women's silence
on a lot of the issues

that are going on,
as far as masculinity and stuff.

What we started to understand was
that for some young men,

anti feminism
and anti-women politics

was a route into broader,
far-right politics.

Andrew Tate understood
the power of that.

Social media opened up unprecedented
audiences to individuals

that wanted to push
the politics of hate.

Now, at the click of a button,

someone could be sat in a bedroom
in London and 24 hours a day

find bits of information
which suits their worldview,

that incenses them.

You could see individuals
radicalising down these pathways,

down these rabbit holes.

And some of this was happening
very, very quickly.

Hope Not Hate's job is to monitor
the far right primarily,

and in 2019, there was a number
of things that happened

that made Andrew Tate
really come onto our radar

as a figure that we needed
to look at.

He turns up in America
at a conference called CPAC.

It is kind of a conservative
political conference

that has long attracted
numerous far-right figures

from around the world.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)

How social media was developed,

these individuals have been very,
very quick to try and use it.

By that time,
Andrew Tate's not putting out

a huge amount of content online.

He's got a few little things
here and there.

He had a very small footprint,

but then it pops up
in these photographs at CPAC.

In those photographs, he was hanging
around with people that

we'd long been looking at
in terms of far-right extremists,

conspiracy theorists
like Paul Joseph Watson,

American figures like Jack Posobiec.

He talked positively
around Alex Jones,

the very high-profile
conspiracy theorist.

He was photographed
next to Nigel Farage,

and all of a sudden it was
very, very clear this was a figure

that was no longer just
an individual that clearly engaged

in terrible behaviour previously,
and got kicked off a TV show.

He was starting to build networks
in a much more extreme world.

I'm here with the man,
Andrew Tate, Cobra Tate.

Thanks for coming out, man.I have
Andrew Cobra Tate with me today,

who is...He was put on loads
of podcasts by far-right figures

and social media influencers because
he said extreme and wild things,

that they thought was entertaining
and was going to get them views.

Well, listen, I don't know
if anyone here knows who you are.

I know you're kind of,
I'd like to say up and coming.

I mean, you got 20,000...

He starts to give these really,
really extreme,

almost peculiar interviews.

I can't think of any socio dynamic,
I can think of any business dynamic,

of any dynamic on Earth
that's better with a female charge.

Yep.
This is reality.I agree.

He was talking about
ownership of women.

He was talking about violence
against women, hitting women,

strangling women.
He was willing to say

whatever it took,
whenever it took

to whatever audience he felt
was most likely to get him

what he wanted.
Getting the girl, fucking the girl

is the first 10% of the game.

Having a girl tattoo your name
on you, on her...

Yeah.
..it's other 90%.

How many girls
have your name on them?

22. I'm on 22.

22, oh, man...

This is a technique that's being
used across these groups,

appearing on each other's podcasts,

helping to bolster
each other's followings

by a sort of cross-promotional,

almost a sort of cross-pollination
of each other's content.

The only happy relationship
that can possibly exist

is with a man leading
and a man in charge.

Any other relationship
is always misery.

They're using each other
for their own financial gain,

for their own fame,
for their own betterment.

And it becomes an entire network,

an entire ecosystem
of very dangerous views.

Andrew, great to have you on.
It's good to be here.

That's a cool place you're in. That
looks like a major chick magnet.

Yeah, well, you know, I'm out here
in Romania at the moment,

which is pretty much...The women
ain't bad-looking in Romania!

They're not bad.
No, they're not bad.(LAUGHS)

JOE: Things start
to shift gear from there,

he took his hateful misogyny
and he tailored it to an audience.

He pulls in the sex, he pulls in
the aspirational lifestyle,

uses the techniques of the
influencer communities

around the world.
And he speaks without any filters.

Man, look at history.

Name a powerful alpha from history
who didn't have more than one wife.

JOULE: Tate's focus was
finding ways to make money online.

He was very active in building
certain online products

and selling those,

and that then led into building
the community that is the War Room.

INTERVIEWER:
Why is it called the war room?

I'm not sure. (LAUGHS)

That's a good question.

I think a more accurate title
would be,

"Arguably the most powerful
community of men

striving for masculine excellence
every single day."

But it's hard to put
that on a website. Right?

So I guess they chose the War Room.

The driving intent
behind the War Room was,

"We really value our brotherhood,
but we can't find anyone else."

The Tate brand
was then put out as a filter

for men who perhaps
also wanted the traditional values,

also wanted that maximum conquest,
building businesses,

training, pushing for growth
and for evolution every day.

Tate does put forward solutions.
Get brothers around you,

get your money right,
get your fitness right,

work endlessly to improve
your life through attaining

masculine excellence
in all realms.

HARRIET: He is identified what he
sees as a gap in the market.

He's saying to men, "Nobody's
listening to you, but I am,

and here's how
I can help you be successful."

He's selling courses online,

ultimately selling a sexist agenda.

Welcome to the Tate PHD Course.
If you bought this course,

which you have,
congratulations.

You're going to change
your life for the better.

I know exactly what I'm talking
about. I'm fucking certified.

One of Andrew Tate's courses
was called a PhD course,

which was the Pimping Hoes Degree.

A lot of people ask me, what do you
do when your girl does this?

What do you do when a girl does-

Almost, like, how do you discipline
your female?

I'll tell you now.

Women only give a shit
about one thing.

Attention.

In it, we really see him encouraging
men to adopt very unscrupulous,

manipulative
psychological methods

in a style of advice that
some might consider to be grooming.

You promise them you'll take them
to fucking Thailand or Bora Bora

or wherever at the end of the year,

and we'll live together happily
ever after. This is amazing.

Promise dreams, sell dreams.

Tate's adopting this idea
of being a pimp,

or promoting himself as a pimp.

And, of course, pimping is illegal
and it's exploiting women.

I take all the money
from all my girls. I take it all.

I pay fractions to them.

Andrew Tate is a character rising up
and saying, "I'm famous.

I have all these women,
I have all this money.

All you need to do is listen to me."

Dark hair bitch, fuck...
So then it's not about me,

then it's about THEM
losing to other women

cos there's more of you everywhere,
half of the world are women.

Go to the fucking gym.
Get built.

You're built,
you don't need fashion.

..looks like you!

I'll close my eyes. I'll fuck a
bitch who looks nothing like you

with my eyes closed
and pretend it's you. I don't care!

REPORTER: Hospitals
are reaching full capacity.

Intensive care units in more than
50 Florida hospitals are now full.

BORIS JOHNSON: To stop the disease
spreading, you must stay at home.

RICHARD:
Covid was just bad for everybody.

It was just a crazy,
chaotic, damaging mess.

We've got a minute on the clock.

(APPLAUSE)

But it was a bit of an echoing
silence around the real issues

that boys and men were facing.

In some ways, the pandemic
was a compression in time

of some of the trends
that we're generally seeing

with boys and young men,
which is more time online,

more social isolation,
struggling in education.

So that creates very fertile
territory for people like Tate

to come in and say,
"I understand it,

here's my solution."

They've taken what are legitimate
problems with a lot of men,

boys and men, and they've
turned them into grievances,

which they're then able to exploit.

I don't follow blind rules.
These rules are not about safety.

I've had enough of this shit.

Damn.

Andrew Tate taps into this idea
that there is a secret,

powerful elite
controlling their lives.

In his case, he's the one
that's managed to break free.

You're not wearing a mask.

We're anti-mask.

We are on the Romanian moon,

we're throwing a party during Covid,
after they specifically told him...

He flips and flops between
the platforms, attempting to

both mimic the style of those
platforms, but also mimic

the messaging that he thinks
he can expand his audience through.

What he manages to
eventually stumble across

is a formula that
is the perfect storm.

(OMINOUS MUSIC)

TikTok started to emerge
around 2018 and 2019,

but it wasn't until
the pandemic and lockdowns

that people really started
downloading it in a huge way,

and it really blew up as the sort
of main social media platform,

particularly for young people
and teenagers.

TikTok is the latest app
to capture the attention of teens

and young adults across the world.

A TikTok is all about fun and money.

Eyeballs bring money.

People were learning dance routines.

It was fun. It was addictive.

MAX: TikTok functions
on algorithms,

just like the other platforms,

and it turns on the exact
same human frailties.

But it is much more
algorithmically-focused.

TikTok is pure algorithm.

All it does is show you video
and then learn from that

what you spend time on,
what you don't spend time on.

It is just laser-focused
on your, like, monkey brain.

And it loves to show you
the same types of content

over and over and over again.

MAN: (ON VIDEO)
Oh! What the fuck?

JOE: TikTok is the perfect
platform for Andrew Tate.

Men have never been faithful. Ever.

Look at history. Every single...

If you track Andrew Tate
on social media

Tate blips when he's on Big Brother,

and he tries to break through
a little bit on social media.

Then there's another blip
when he starts talking about

some of the MeToo content, but
he remains relatively irrelevant

until you see this meteoric rise
through the TikTok period.

The kind of history of social media
and the history of Andrew Tate

collide in that moment.

The most beautiful women, on
average, have slept with less men

than an average chick.

JOULE: Tate's goal was to blow up.
To master the attention economy.

He knows how to bring in attention
through saying things that are...

things that get a reaction.
That's a conscious strategy.

Become Hustlers University.
Welcome to the metaverse.

Inject it into your brain.

And if you only exist
amongst the money...

you're going to end up
with some money.

Welcome to the Hustlers University.

Early 2022 we start
to hear increasingly

about this thing called
the Hustlers University.

He bragged it was the largest
online university in the world.

It's a very broad
use of the term 'university'.

And when you are in this online
space, there was various courses.

You're supposed to be lectured
by millionaires.

Whatever it was,
there was a big chunk of it

about an affiliate marketing scheme.

And by that, what I mean is,

if you've got people to sign up
to Hustlers University,

you got, I think,
48% of their sign up fee.

This became the mechanism
and the means by which his content

is spread vastly across all various
forms of social media platforms.

If you take these long form
interviews that he's giving

on podcasts, on YouTube...

MAN: And then just adjust this.

..and you clip it up into hundreds
of little clips of him

saying the most extreme stuff that's
going to get the most traction...

Then on the bottom bit of that you
put a link to Hustlers University,

people click on that content
and you get some money back.

If you're a girl
that everyone's had...

This is the engine which
explodes him on TikTok.

..she likes?
She's not allowed to like things.

Her opinions are invalid. She's
a female. She's barely sentient.

She can't think for herself.
You're supposed to think for her.

Just to come along and say...
(DIALOGUE FADES)

There's multiple days where
I would just sit there and scroll,

and then I'll get three Andrew Tate
videos and then some stupid video,

then three Andrew Tate videos
and then some stupid video.

You know, it just
sounded like... an old me.

It was refreshing to hear these
things being said and stuff again.

And it's just like, "OK, you know,

masculinity is coming back
or trying to."

So, I figured I'd give him a push

and try to listen
to everything that he said.

He represents a lifestyle that any
young man would want to have.

And he shows you how you can get
that through discipline, hard work.

Everybody was trying to tell me
I should hate him.

And it was hard for me to hate him.

So I was trying to find a way like,
"Should I really hate this guy?"

And I don't hate him, so.
(CHUCKLES)

So I put a plan together
to conquer TikTok four months ago.

Yeah.And I've now
completed my conquest.

Yeah.
So, bro, done.

So I conquered TikTok faster than
the nation states conquer countries.

(OMINOUS MUSIC)

It became impossible to open up
a social media app,

any of the major platforms,
and not come across this content.

Not because you wanted to,
but because it was served up to you.

I would never let a woman pay
for a bill.

By that summer we're talking over
12 billion views of content

that's related to Tate.

TATE: This new idea that men
and women are the same

is complete garbage
that's been invented, right?

CHLOE: I was in the garden
with my two boys.

One was just pre-teen
and one was a teenager.

They said something
that was a bit odd about girls

and I obviously questioned it.
I'm sure that it was, like,

a derogatory sort of
'female' kind of slang,

and I just didn't understand
where it had came from.

They mentioned Andrew Tate,
so we Googled him.

I'd never heard of him before.

(HIP-HOP MUSIC)

I really didn't think that
anyone would take him seriously,

it was so kind of cringy.

I was quite dismissive.

But then in school, I noticed
a change in the boys' vocabulary,

like misogyny,
patriarchy, chauvinism.

You know, in my 20-year career,

I'd never really heard teenage boys
being at ease with these words.

It really kind of surprised me.

One level, I was pleased that
they had the vocabulary,

but I didn't know
where it had came from.

I was asked, "Does your husband
let you go to work?"

No-one had ever asked me
that before.

A student asked about my body count.

Now, obviously that's
an inappropriate question to ask.

And they know it's
an inappropriate question to ask.

There was a certain kind of
verbally aggressive tone

that was very Andrew Tate.

It definitely seems
like a regression.

You know, noticeable change in the
ways that boys talked about girls.

It's completely wrong
to dismiss him as a joke

because he's not a joke.
He's a real threat.

TATE: I'll never look at a beautiful
woman who does everything I say

and go, "You know what?
You do too much of what I say,

I'm gonna go get
some disagreeable bitch."

The way that he relates to humanity,

that makes him really dangerous
to young people.

I conquered the internet,
hundreds of millions of dollars,

four times kickboxing
world champion, 27 cars,

properties across the world.

MAX: Our brains evolved
to have social feedback

from like 10 to 20 people at most.

Social platforms deliver a very,
different kind of feedback

on a much, much larger scale.

and they push you
very, very deliberately

towards certain emotions,
certain social feedbacks

that do change how people behave and
change how we feel and how we act.

REPORTER 1: On social media
there's growing concern

that constant online interaction
can affect attention spans...

REPORTER 2: Social media and the
internet is part of everyday life

for children and teenagers.

REPORTER: The coroner said
14-year-old Molly Russell

died from an act of self-harm
while suffering from depression

and the negative effects
of online content.

When you're on social media,
you're not the customer...

..you're the product.

They are selling your engagement
to advertisers,

and they're selling
your user data to advertisers.

So they have a direct
and palpable economic incentive

to maximise the engagement
of every user.

Not by showing them
what they want to see,

but by showing them
what they can't look away from.

Kids are particularly vulnerable,
both to become addicted to

social media, but also
to have bad judgment regarding

what they do on social media.
And then overreact emotionally

to adverse consequences
on social media.

So, it's a perfect storm.

We filed our first case
in January of 2022

and it involved Selena Rodriguez,

an 11-year-old girl who took her
life and filmed it on Snapchat.

She was a child that was
so addicted to social media that

she broke her sister's nose when
they tried to take her phone away.

ANNOUNCER: Breaking news, at least
ten people dead in a mass shooting

at a supermarket in Buffalo.

ANNOUNCER 2: The shooter was heavily
armed and had tactical gear

and a tactical helmet on.

ANNOUNCER 3: According to the
lawsuit, the shooter was radicalised

by algorithms on the social media
sites that he used,

which fed him, and I'm quoting here,
"increasingly racist,

anti-Semitic and
violence-inducing content."

Payton Gendron was targeted
with artificial intelligence

on a number of platforms,
including YouTube.

In order to maintain his engagement

they sent him down a rabbit hole of
it showing him increasingly radical,

racist, anti-Semitic material.

The social media companies
have designed products

to maximise engagement.

They are unsafe
when they're used as intended

because the use is predictable
and designed into it.

There's no mistake. There's no
mystery. There's no coincidence.

This was foreseeable.
We knew this was going to happen,

but there was so much money to be
made that they kept making it.

And they kept doing it,
even though they knew that

these kinds of situations would keep
occurring again and again and again.

JOE: I think the best way
to understand the impact

of people that create harmful
and pernicious content

is often very, very difficult to
turn around and say,

"This person that went off and did
something awful in the real world

is purely indirectly responsible
Back to Andrew Tate," for example.

But what they do is Andrew Tate,
and content creators like him,

they create a swamp of content which
is pernicious and nasty and hateful.

And out of that swamp
will emerge mosquitoes

which go off and
do individual things.

He's fundamental to creating
a kind of ecosystem online,

where individuals
consume harmful content,

over which he cannot control
what they go and do.

But those mosquitoes emerge
out of that swamp,

and some of them go off
and do terrible things.

ANNOUNCER: Research shining
a light on the dark
underside of social media.

Connecting and promoting
a network of accounts

dedicated to underage sex content.

WOMAN: They were touching my upper
and middle portion of my avatar.

He said things like,
"Don't pretend you don't love it.

TATE: Feminists who hate us
and call us toxic,

the second they have trouble,
they'll call a police officer.

ANNOUNCER 2: Lost control of
the amount of time
that youngsters spend online.

TATE: Women need to respect you
as a man.

How's a woman gonna respect you
if no other girl wants you?

They all had 100 wives, bunch of
children. Big G, conquers the world.

Normal. That's normal
evolutionary biology.

That's how men are designed to be.

Deplatforming is a tactic
we try to use quite sparingly

at Hope Not Hate.
It's based on the understanding

that certain individuals
engage in behaviour

that is so harmful and toxic it has
a real effect, both on society,

but also on the online spaces
in which they're active.

The other big line
is whether or not we think

it's going to have a really
negative effect on society.

And Andrew Tate just
increasingly ticked each box.

His content was breaking
the terms of service

of all of the major
social media platforms.

And yet, the platforms
weren't acting.

It's bang, out the machete,
boom, in her face,

and grip her up by the neck,
"Shut up, bitch!"

We watched everything
we could get our hands on.

Spent time in Hustlers University
online to try and better understand

the mechanisms of what he was doing
in terms of money-making,

and we brought that research
together and we produced a report.

It was clear that this
was something that had broken out

of the confines of
marginal online spaces

and was having a genuine effect
on young people.

We go to the tech platforms.
We send them our research and say,

"Essentially, here's an opportunity
to do the right thing."

In a matter of days,
we see YouTube remove his account.

Instagram, Facebook.
It's all starting to look good.

TikTok act very, very slowly, become
very, very aggressive with us,

but eventually claim that
they have also removed an account.

Andrew Tate has been banned
from Facebook and Instagram

for violating its policies
around dangerous individuals.

What you start to see is
probably the most successful

deplatforming campaign we'd ever
been involved in at Hope Not Hate.

HARRIET: Shortly after Tate
had been deplatformed,

we approached Tate for a comment.

And he was very keen
to be interviewed.

We debated long and hard
about whether

we might be inadvertently
providing another platform for him

to share his insidious views,

but ultimately, this was
a man that had global notoriety.

We spoke over Zoom
in the summer of August 2022.

During a conversation,
he describes

his content being
taken out of context.

And when I asked him
to provide the context,

he actually doubled down on this.

He said, "I agree with everything
I've ever said.

I stand by everything
I've ever said."

Deplatforming is not a silver bullet
and never has been.

For a very, very short moment
it felt like a great success.

It felt like, actually, the platform
was publicly pressured

into doing something really
positive, and we felt

it was going to have a real long
term effect on his appeal online.

Sadly, that didn't turn out
to be the case.

PRODUCER: No.
No.(LAUGHTER)

Oh, you banned me from Instagram,
did you?

I'm still on a private jet,
mother fucker.

I'm still travelling the world.
I'm still top G.

Think you can ban me,
you can't ban me.

I'm back with a vengeance.

The matrix can't defeat me.

Previously, you'd remove
a really harmful figure

and they would end up
on an alternative platform,

Getta or Gab,
speaking to tiny audiences.

He was removed from YouTube,
Facebook and Instagram,

and he was talking about things
on vast international TV shows.

PIERS MORGAN: He's the most famous
man you probably never heard of

with billions of views online.

This was a challenge those of us
that engage in campaigning

for deplatforming
hadn't faced before.

Well, welcome first of all,

you come all the way from Romania
to do this interview.Correct.

What do you hope to achieve from
this interview? Why are you here?

It'd be interesting to have
a conversation with you.

You've certainly been the subject

of your own divided opinions in the
world. There's a lot of people

who would say some of the things you
say are perhaps dangerous or toxic.

I thought you'd be a good person
to speak to on this subject.

He starts to use mainstream media,
use these major global platforms

that he's given to launder
his reputation again

to a global audience.

I don't hate women in any regard.

I have no negative relationship with
women. No women have come forward

saying I've hurt them. I've no
criminal record against women.

I think rape is disgusting.
I'd take a stronger stance on rape

than the British government. I think
they should face the death penalty.

And then that clip is
back on social media,

and all of a sudden you can
watch him again on social media,

despite his own platform
being removed.

I will say that I am sorry
that offends you.

However, there's a large
contingent of the world-
That doesn't mean you're sorry.

I'm not sorry, that's my point.
Please don't interrupt.

I know why you're good at your job.
First you interrupt people a lot,

which is a good skill-
(OVERLAPPING CHATTER)

You're proving me right, the timing
is good. The other thing you do...

Every time he's caught and he gets
in trouble he reinvents himself

in a different way, a way he hopes
will allow him to get sympathy.

He tapped into
an existing culture war.

And took himself from an individual
that was rightly removed

for engaging in awful
and dangerous behaviour,

into an individual that was being
persecuted for telling the truth.

So, they're scared of men,
free-thinking,

and they're scared of young
men free-thinking.

And my fans are young,
military age males,

and I teach them to free think.
So they look at me

and they literally see me
as a threat to the world.

And that's why... I think
they're going to try and kill me.

And I think this is one of
our last chances to fight.

And I think it's a battle
of good versus evil,

genuinely God against the demons.

(DOOR KNOCK)

ANNOUNCER 1: The social media
personality Andrew Tate,

alongside his brother Tristan,
have been arrested

on suspicion of
human trafficking and rape.

ANNOUNCER 2: Widely regarded as one
of the most famous people online.

He's grown his profile
through misogynistic,

racist and homophobic commentary.

It seemed pretty obvious to lots
of people that someone that had

this attitude towards women, that
bragged about certain behaviours

and certain things
that he'd even done himself,

that at some point there needs
to be consequences for that.

But I don't think anyone realised
quite how extreme

some of the charges would be and
how many victims would come forward.

He's now been charged
and is awaiting trial for rape,

human trafficking, and forming
an organised crime group

designed to exploit women.

The matrix has attacked me.

He's innocent until proven guilty.
This has to go through the courts.

But this is not the way
he spun it online,

which is, this is
a matrix attack against him

because he said some
nasty things on social media.

He's told his supporters that
he's being dragged through the mud

because he got some women
some views on TikTok,

and that's just absolutely
not the truth.

God knows the truth.
There's no evidence in my file.

(INDISTINCT SHOUTS)

Everybody knows I'm innocent.
That's OK. Everyone knows.

JOE: The thing that I think
was so depressing was how many

of his supporters responded
in a way that's just exactly

as he would have wanted them to
and said, "This can't be true."

When you look back now
at the content that he produced

over a number of years
prior to his arrest, it seems pretty

clear that he's inoculating his
audience against what's coming.

First you get cancelled. Then they
make up a reason to put you in jail.

And if that fails, they kill you.

He is pre-loading his audience
with all the arguments

that they need to defend him
when he gets arrested.

Oh, yeah. Mainstream media.

Oh, shit.
I'll just put it simple like this.

They tell you what to think,
and they control why you think it.

For sure Tate has brainwashed me.

But do you accept your brainwashing?
You know?

I appreciate more of
his brainwashing than...

..than stuff my mom
has told me for years.

That's just a problem
with the world.

They don't want these aspirations
right now. They don't.

You know, they've basically
killed off all of our great leaders

and imprisoned the rest in...

propaganda, the few remaining left.

If he ends up in prison
for a long period of time

and he doesn't have
access to social media.

A lot of these movements move on.

But over 90-odd percent
of young men know who he is,

and 50% of those people
agree with him.

The impact of this,
what's happening right now,

will not just end the moment he gets
rid of his social media accounts,

or he becomes an irrelevance.

He'll inculcate people
with views about women

that will last some
of those people decades,

and there's ramifications will go on
for a long period of time.

(OMINOUS MUSIC STING)

ANNOUNCER 1: Widely regarded as one
of the most famous people online.

MAN: A TikTok is all about
fun and money.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

ZUCKERBERG: Facebook has
become less about colleges

and more about sharing
lots of content

with different groups of people.

When people share more, the world
becomes more open and connected.

And in a more open world,
many of the biggest problems

we face together
will become easier to solve.

MAX: There was this line that Mark
Zuckerberg used to use all the time.

He said, "We are fundamentally
rewiring the world

from the ground up."

This belief...

that we, Silicon Valley,

are going to end the old ways
as we know it

and replace it with this new,
pure civilisation of the mind.

(CHUCKLES) We get a lot
of feedback saying,

like, how much people love the site.

So, how did we get
to where we are now?

A very different
and a much darker place.

The companies, at this point,

they don't have naivete
as an excuse anymore.

They don't have, "we don't know.
We were just 22-year-old dropouts."

They're grown ups now.
They know what the platforms do.

They understand the effect
that it has on its users

and it has on our politics
and our societies.

And they are choosing that.

MAN: 37% of teenage girls
were exposed

to unwanted nudity
in a week on Instagram.

You knew about it,
who was fired?

Senator, this is why we're building-
Who did you fire?

Senator, that's not- That's-
Who did you fire?

Um, I'm not gonna answer that.

There's families
of victims here today.

Have you apologised to the victims?

Would you like to do so now? They're
here. You're on national television.

Would you like now to apologise to
the victims who have been harmed-

Show the pictures.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

I think a lot of social media
engineers do believe that

they are just reflecting our own
psychology back to us,

and there is a lot of truth to that.

These tendencies don't
come from nowhere.

(CHUCKLES)
But it is still true

and has been demonstrated
over and over again,

including by the researchers
within these companies,

that their platforms
dramatically exacerbate

and amplify these worst tendencies.

THOMAS: I ran one of the largest
experiments ever run,

which was to change a platform of
hundreds of millions of people

from a completely
chronological feed

to something where
the platform controls

the distribution of content.

It was, like, a very radical change
to a lot of people all at once.

And so there's just a lot
to understand about that.

But yeah...

I hope I'm not come across cold.
(CHUCKLES)

I mean, truly, like,
weird times, strange things.

And, you know, in some ways,

I'm still thinking about things
that were happening there

and not with regret, but with,
like, maybe sober mind.

It's like, "Oh."

It's strange to think about myself
being there and involved in them.

Being able to flip a switch
that affects 300 million

or 400 million people.

It's not- I don't think I even-
Yeah, it's just hard.

Hard to comprehend what that means.

It's a very weird feeling
to have had a lot of impact,

but not knowing if this impact
was good or bad.

It's a bit overwhelming when
you when you think about that.

So you prefer, naturally,
you prefer not to think about it.

MAX: Now we have AI and we know that
it is going to be transformative.

For example, what would
it be like if...

we had another Microsoft Tay today?

That chat bot that Microsoft
developed back in 2016

that went haywire and started
sending racist, crazy tweets.

You really just have to look
at someone like Andrew Tate,

someone who has already decided
that they want to optimise

for whatever the platform
wants them to optimise for.

And the only difference is

they would probably look more
realistically human.

And there's going to be
a lot more of them.

It wouldn't surprise me
if somebody was already doing it

and we just didn't know.

People ask me, aren't you worried
that AI in social media

could change our politics
and our society?

It's already happening.
Social media is already doing that.

And so it's...
you know, it's too late.

It's like a handful... companies

that are deciding
literally where the world is going.

And when you ask them,
"Hey, can you...

can you let me...

see where the world is going?"

And they're like, "No, no, no,
this is our private information.

No, you can't have
access to this information."

That's, for me,
is absolutely insane.

I don't want to sound like a,
kind of, Luddite and say

that we should get rid of
all this stuff

and only talk about
the terrifying things.

There's no doubt that AI is
going to revolutionise our lives

in remarkable and brilliant ways.
Health care and all these things.

But we're already seeing how AI
is being used by those individuals

that are determined to push hate,
determined to undermine democracy.

ANNOUNCER 1: As cameras
captured, in real time,

the arraignment of Donald Trump,

deep fake photos like these swirled
around social media, seemingly

showing the former president
struggling with authorities.

The real danger with AI is not that
we believe things that aren't true,

is that we just stop
believing anything.

2024 is the year that will have
the most people going to the polls

of any year in human history.

(APPLAUSE)

When we talk about free and fair
elections, we have to consider

how free and fair elections
can be when millions of people

around the world are being
manipulated by social media.

When we see a real politician
giving a statement,

it can be written off as AI.

When we see a hateful figure
that is arrested for a crime,

they turn around and say,
"I didn't do that, that was AI."

Unfortunately, there's a chance that
the worst is not behind us on this.

INTERVIEWER:
Thanks so much, Joe.

I'll have to get protection
after this comes out.(LAUGHTER)

INTERVIEWER:
Really grateful.

Here,
it will take me two seconds.

He's just- He's just going
to get noisier at this point.

(CAT MEOWS)

What- What is the take away,
like..?

Because I'm feeling quite despairing
and- (LAUGHS)

You know, it's just like,
are we doomed?

(LAUGHTER)
Yeah.

It's a problem you're describing
that I'm very familiar with.

I know you are.

I mean, I don't know
if this is useful for you,

but there's much more awareness
and understanding

that social media is harmful
and the ways that it's harmful

in the way that there really
wasn't even just 3 or 4 years ago.

There is a growing sense
that maybe these are not good places

to get your sense of identity.

People starting to, like, question
their relationship to these apps.

Maybe we're at the start of a,
like, broader awakening

about the harms of these platforms.

At this point, we know that Silicon
Valley is not going to fix it.

And governments are going
to try with regulations,

but they can only get so far,
you know,

what do you want to do differently?

What do you want to change
about how you engage

with the internet
and with social platforms,

now that you know what
it's doing to you?

(COMPUTER BEEPING)

(PHONE CHIMES)

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