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Why Banning Radical Misogynist Andrew Tate from Social Media Was a Great Decision
His freedom of speech stops where your safety is violated.
YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok have banned Andrew Tate.
The odds are high you already heard about him, so to put it short, he’s a violent misogynist, self-help guru, criminal, and scammer who thinks women are the property of men. He has actively influenced young men through his scams. Tate has millions of followers and billions of views.
Yet, one can argue that being a total asshole doesn’t take the right away from Tate to speak up. Restricting freedom of speech is the highway to dictatorship, and we can’t ban someone every time their values don’t align with Western norms. That’s a pretty dangerous game.
As Voltaire put it,
“I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it.”
So why was it still appropriate to make this dude disappear from social media platforms?
Andrew Tate already caused terrifying harm
As we live in a society, we all need to follow certain rules. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to live together more or less peacefully.
Thus, freedom of speech also has its limitations. As a rule of thumb, it follows the harm principle meaning that freedom of speech ends where it can cause harm to others.
Tate normalizes abuse and sexual misconduct and once even claimed women are at least partially responsible for being raped. According to Youtuber Daz, who investigated the case and talked with victims, this resulted in real-life crimes in many cases.
Harm-principle, check.
The most common boundaries to freedom of speech are absolute; it applies to everyone, regardless of their values, beliefs, and opinions. It includes, among others, obscenity, hate speech, defamation, incitement to violence, and true threats of violence.
Tate crossed many of the limitations without hesitation.
For example, he vividly described and showed how he would beat up and rape women who would accuse him of cheating:
