Read this: Investigating Andrew Tate

BBC sounds music Radio podcasts hello, this is the media show from BBC Radio 4 now the chances are that 6-months you haven't heard of Andrew Tate the chances are that you have by now I did a speech about why I have this sword.

I take speeches like my YouTube channel text Rich yeah.

Talk about how the number one problem with the world.

Is that not enough men walk around the houses with swords we have the extrapolated is a man walk down the Sword and she's like put a mask on it like a mask and Commander and it's a former kickboxer.

He's now a social media influencer last year was more Google than Donald Trump Kim Kardashian and it's contents and most hundreds of millions of views is Enthusiasm for misogyny cars and wealth as delivered fame.

Thousands of fans and many thousands of dollars is being held in Romania as part of an investigation into raping people trafficking take denies all the allegations and that keppra just heard what time is the journalist Matt Shea who gained access to take compound in Romania this door leads to a calculator that's quite a side up on there is no, thank you.

You made this film for Vice is called the Dangerous rise of Andrew Tate I wonder when you first decided to try and make contact with him.

Well.

I was actually first this story by journalist called Jamie Tarzan who's been following Andrew Tate 4 years before it became famous so by the time we were filming is compound in Romania we were positioned in such a way.

He was just because going to be depart for just happened.

We had an inside view of them is in a circle dealing with that and how do you go about requesting access to Andrew takes compound and request interview well, I think Andrew take was and his team are quite quite aware of the fact that any publicity even bad, but without them that perhaps when the reasons they decided to to let us in.

I think what they didn't realise was that we were also simultaneously during an investigation into him that we were speaking to for the first time the women from his past to allege that he raped and abused them and when he and his colleagues agreed to let you into his compound and to film did they give you do they say what you can do this? You can do that.

You can't do that you can ask this you can't ask that.

We're always up front with with him that we will be making an ejector documentary and telling all the facts as we saw them, but yes when we were there.

You know they were temperature control weird chaperones constantly.

We are told don't go in there that does love to try and get in there something going on your face and we had you know so scary intimidating strong men behind an interview and everyone modelling of questions and all that so well.

Thank you for coming on to speak about your film and Andrew Tate story more broadly connect directly to help media content is made distributed moderated and assumed and we're going to spend today's edition of the media show understanding that with the help of Matt Shea but also we've had a Lewis who staff writer at the Atlantic also presenter of the recent BBC podcast series than you which looks online personalities with big following.

Hi Helen would you consider Andrew tayto a form of guru?

So these are a sweet of girls who attempt to tell young men how to live and in there is a very strong ideology behind them which is a form of masking and he's been lost you had that clip at the top of the sword near him and you having much Maps excellent documentary the thing that strikes me as it's a very much like a 13-year olds boys idea, what it means to be a man a guy goes up and she says my name is Alpha wolf and how did not laugh at that point but it's like so much stuff on the internet now where it is ironic not ironic in the sense that they're saying I'm a misogynist.

You know cos everyone calls me.

You know you know an Innocence to be performance there, but it is also serious at the same time and that's something.

I think John is really struggles to grapple with is saying that someone is putting on a show for you, but underneath the show there is something nasty going on at the time.

I'm going to get into those dilemmas questions for journalists, when they choose to interact with someone like Andrew take less also bringing Scott Galloway host of the biggest business podcast in the US the prof g show.

As well as being hosted pivot many be listening with no it is a hugely popular tech podcast very welcome to the media.

Thanks for your time today.

What lessons are you taking for the media from the story of Andrew Tate and the extent to which is content is consumed had a game this analysis included as people to put out the videos to go shorter and shorter and shorter and it's starting to the same range machine at the algorithms.

Love that both Donald Trump compelling resonates with 60% of your audience and in regions the other 40% because you have rage and Conflict around contact you get a lot of clicks and the orange go with like this and so if you say, what do you say it's women have

Rape Victims have this responsibility for the rape which is an outrageous statement it creates a lot of activity comments in one espresso ads and yoghurt and elevate contact so he is game of fibre system and social media created this monster if you are when you were interacting not just with Andrew Tate but some of his colleagues were you aware that he was thinking about some of the factors that Scott describes.

Yeah definitely I think it's someone with that one of the ways that he's been able to describes is do something called the Hustler's University which is ostensibly a kind of all line course round.

You'll take will teach you how to become wealthy and successful an alpha male like him.

It's not been shut down, but when it was it also ran a can of affiliate marketing scheme where you had a financial incentive to share a really clips of Andrew tape and students of the University of which there.

Honest unit 1000 at the time were instructed that the more controversial the better in terms of Sharon continent is so you know it's not just him posting is videos it's an army of young people and that's very difficult to tiktok and other purpose of finding it very difficult to shut that down as much when you spoke to him.

I tried to get him to to speak on that and he should have said you know I wouldn't claim to to have any control over is exact words were some random 14-year old Singaporean who and tried to sort of say that it wasn't intentional but really this is a very well Thought Out and kind of ingenious campaign to make him famous.

I know we've already alluded to some of the challenges for journalism for the media is the weather doing gauge with someone like Andrew or not.

It's fair to say it x Matt you had a reasonably immersive experience winning the compound.

This is part of your film when you are face-to-face with members of what's called the war room that in a circle if you like around route and you're a boxing training session when I interviewed Andrew that morning and ask them some very difficult questions about his misogynistic views and I asked specifically about the lover boy method which is you before that has University and returned something called the PhD cost which is basically the pimping hose degree which is instructor young man how to convince women to some sort of sexy Jason porn industry, so I can have grill them on that in the morning and then in the afternoon.

She basically a situation where we were in a boxing German he started.

Let's hear a little angel that went for you.

I meet and get punched in the face by the inner circle of the war room in the world and who is creating not only are women to be subjugated, so that the men defined by their capacity to inflict violence when you try to stop the whole thing.

I didn't look overly enthused about stopping.

Yeah.

You know one of the things they said was it this is a street fight you can tap out and did you have any journalistic concerns about doing that or what did you get into a cage fight as part of a test that Andrew take headset some people who paid to visit the compound.

Do you think at any point perhaps? This is getting into territory.

I shouldn't be in.

Yeah, I mean has generously often have to do especially making documented lots of uncomfortable things to get the axis that we do but the result was you know we were the first people on the only way to get to his so-called secret society the warm and ultimately and RXS lead us being the only people who managed to give a platform the voice to the women who alleged that she sexually assaulted them abused them.

So you know ultimately this investigation.

Is you no give us the biggest picture of his second secret society and the woman from his past.

Would you make calendars you watch that section of the film?

I think it's extraordinary powerful.

I mean when talking about this in a week in which you know serving metropolitan police to take it was convicted of a huge number of rape.

So it was red flags for 20 years back and I think that's very clear that there have been a number of red flags with not picked up on in the background of Andrew Tate and then we've complainants who were not taken seriously just a very abusive voice notes existing and again.

This is speaks through an interaction with technology which is that misogyny is often the on-ramp to other types of bigotry of the on-ramp too far.

Write content for example simply because it is so nebula so widespread and actually so at low levels told you know the idea that women just need a smack is actually something you can get away with saying I'm pretty much every social network in the way that you cannot say overtly racist things and so I had to put a long way before he got banned from from all these social networks which has demonstrated because he had other people falling in posted content was not necessarily effective any of this is somebody that Elon Musk brought back to Twitter as well.

So this is.

It's worth saying that the band did not endure in the case of Twitter does the word saying that in the case of is detention in Romania at the moment Andrew take denies all allegations also a statement given it on behalf of the Daily Mirror read Andrew and Tristan Tate that's his brother.

Have you got most respect for the Romanian authorities and will always assist and help in any way they can Scott what's your view of journalists and the media should interact with the phenomenon like Andrew Tate but you wonder if you decide him or grist to the mill when you highlight or bring attention to this kind of truth and I would argue that the guilty party uh, if he and his brother have crimes Romania I hope you told her account but I would say the corporate in the USA what is not helping our social media platforms that seed benefit having algorithms.

Contact this controversial The Creator discourse, it's more course and they're coming if you if you don't mind he's been banned him and he still everywhere and what you're saying in the yous dating a related on.

This is a flying if hate speech speech offline is illegal it's going to be illegal online but that you were the Hustler's University which agitators circumvent some of the bands from the big tech companies that Scott's just listed.

Yeah, that's right place with the real world, but yeah, this is the thing it how do you stop spreading when it's not him posting it? It's his army and let me just a couple of how do you take aways interviewed by Hugo rifkind the British journalist recently in towards the end of that article 15 rights if I had a sign I hate the thought of him being exposed to it and I'm far from wild about my daughter.

To deal with teenage boys who have soaked in it.

I've even agonised about whether I ought to do this interview although of the most googled man on the planet can't be written about in a newspaper then.

I'm honestly not sure what any of the here for what's your view of that Helen is there a point at which journalist should stop engaging when I made that decision actually I was asked last year to go on a podcast which was on a tick tock forecast.

I'm in a the other guests who was interviewed essentially and I turned it down because what I felt in that case was that was just going to get chopped up and clipped up and I was there to be the woman that he get to call ugly and stupid and Duncan and the butt of the joke essentially and that would actually happened was exactly the same some more controversial content would be created and I think you have to make the decision when you're coming people like this as Macedonia for them.

No problems tea in and there is all publicity is good publicity because it just put them in front of people and the other part of this is the kind of post cancellations fear.

Social networks that we now have so if you get driven off YouTube then you go to Rhumble which is you know it has even fewer safeguards husband's, University takes place on discord which is chat servers that are close to outside.

It's you know you can't say fast and accidentally the tiktok algorithm itself is incredibly we don't know what it prioritises who's in charge of what the rules of it are so that is the other part of this impossible functionally what happens if people get driven to places where you and I can't see them anymore.

You're my tiktok algorithm delivers me videos of sharks and horses having their hooves cleaned if I've logged into that kind up as a 14-year old boy in which the few of these videos and your auntie dawn Peterson who is in different part of the the manosphere from Andrew Tate in 2018, but my male friends cat reporting to me that when they watch that YouTube play Within so15 more Jordan Peterson videos of the aliens know very much what it is that you know who you are demographically what you want to watch and they serve you more and more of it.

I'm sorry one exception to that is is providing a useful contacts for people to learn within so he's already out there at his contestants over 13 billion times on tiktok allow right.

So if you're the receiving out of him their sons their nephews will have and for the first time to our recording we've managed to give a voice to kind of winner from his past and now and some Google said they want to see Andrew Tate and I'm talking about yourself and just about himself the also get a chance to hear the voices of women who alleged that he raped and physically abused them and make a more informed decision about whether to follow him if you commit a crime in absolutely right choice because having some who's a credible journals from the Atlantic just create a halo of credibility that he does not deserve being in the same room with him.

So I think iPod your decision there but

Commit a crime so should be held accountable but it's debatable as to whether his cartoon online should be banned.

It's it's unhealthy it's wrong, but you can find a lot about account and white it doesn't get banned.

Where would I think you're missing in the media? Is there a do you think they're a lot of young man if you are looking for explanation or they feel as if they haven't been given the day they been on a one and other societal movement in the album treated fairly and I think there is a lot of evidence showing that no cohort is found further faster than young and it is a certain amount of masculinity without being aggressive or physically strong.

It is conflated with toxicity you hear the term toxic masculinity more than here the term masculinity and if I talk about what the media can do that help here.

I didn't highlighting.

How long he is witchcraft frankly is attractive to many young man it's disturb finding positive role models of masculinity and lifting I'm up.

And recognising that there is more benign and positive masculinity in the world, then there is toxic masculinity.

We need to fill this void because there is a void there is a need a month young men understand.

Why they are feeling do you think there's a void at the media could use Scots phrase kind of search for either a replacement father figures or replacement kind of uniform sort of bar that the pub you know the kind of place at male spaces were dominated by men women can hang out and is one of the things that is a downside to hurt so much more social life having moved online is instead of going down to your local Wetherspoons wear a kind of cross-section of people worry.

They're saying don't worry lads.

You know it all work out in the end.

I said young man and find themselves falling into these circles the bit where I slightly do it with it.

Is it something I said with all of the gurus and somebody makes you very appealing online is a sense of injustice and being wronged and this.

Actual little millionaires and people with in a Russell Brand has got 6 million subscribers on YouTube and presents himself as this tiny henpecked voice standing up against the man finishing of the man that you want to have a caution about uncritically accepting any gurus grievance narrative know before I bring you back in that's got your applauding for not agreeing to an interview or discussion with Andrew Tate in the last 3 months of last year Piers Morgan on his Talk TV show interviewed Andrew take twice both interviews of wrapped up huge numbers of use on TuneIn at the end of the first interview Piers Morgan on TalkTalk TV turn to his decision around speaking to Andrew Tate present so many people said why extend his profile and give them a platform but the fact is that she had already sailed everything is a country those Andrew take it just loads of parents who don't have inset interview.

Andrews been returned to Twitter many young people especially boys are literally stopped me in the street since that first interview to ask me about Andrew T I've been standard Odyssey by the response.

I've had that will you persuaded when you're already working on the story and then Piers Morgan does to high-profile interviews with Andrew Tate Persuaded by his decision-making.

How do you mean as decision-making in work? What is decision-making to do the interview to put Andrew Tate in the studio and to give him time and to put it out through the Talk TV channels question it any any decision to give added a further platform without also given a platform to the alleged victims right and

You're saying that I think there is something it is something that we know when we working this new media when things get cut up and clipped up to work with and think about and what Matt does very successfully is contextualize Andrew Tate so you don't just give and retake a platform to do the performance of Andrew tanous, which is you know to be clear extraordinarily charismatic and captivating but you put it in the in the context of both the allegations and one of the things.

I think comes out wrong in the vice documentary is that he's got a set of lines as good as any politician.

I've ever worked with and actually you get beyond the lines.

She starts running and looks very ill.

So what you have to be very careful not to do is set it up like a cage fighting make sure the guys a kickboxer.

He's going to places like a heel in wrestling and he will play that but what you have to do.

I think they're more about the media is about the idea that when you put out to your audience.

What's the package? What's the stuff you put around it? How do you give people the information understand not just this captivating performance that they're saying but you're right if we were.

Documentary there's a huge amount of context which is valuable to judge the exchanges with Andrew Tate but actually Mathieu document yourself how you went on to his podcast and then your appearance on a podcast on the way the tape dealt with you was chopped up in a way that presented the whole thing's of viewers on tiktok in a way that didn't really represent what had happened.

So even though you would taking as many precautions as you heard your involvement with instantly got misrepresented and the podcast was to try and figure out how this machine works and you're right within seconds of going with minutes to going on there his army cutting you know that stopping and restarting it in in lots and lots of ways having now if you look him up along with my name all along with vice news your hair from the women who alleged that he again and physically abused them and also your hair what we've also published.

Voice notes from these women and this is the really crucial thing which proportionately appear to show Andrew Tate discussing it admitting to these crimes voice notes which were submitted to the the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK and they declined to prosecute and you're right those are now in the in the public domain but Scott when you're creating media and when we look at the media around and does everyone working within Amelia need to accept that anything that we will produce is going to be chopped up twisted turned around and as such the way it's consumed immediately we lose control of that.

Yeah, well whoever holds the Aberdeen software composition and however they want and unfortunately he's in most of this for me to create content that sells snackable and the arguments love that I wonder if I think it's the same time is not a disease and I think the disease is it or alarm young man in the US for everyone male College graduate which is still the ultimate on round to the middle class in America

Two female collage 4 times as likely to be addicted three times as likely to kill themselves 12 times as likely to be incarcerated in a looking for answers in I think until I think sometimes don't want to acknowledge that there is a difference in boys have different needs than female role models my life and I think we have to figure out programs Helen was hard maths chapter school sports with a boy scouts whether it's church whether it's a program to get born man prison release programs, what happens when a prison release programs crandles down because young meals get more men back in the neighbourhood I think or treating he's a symptom but more supple conversation is how do we how do we find out how we are young man have become so susceptible to this blame Game and create and much more robust much more enlightened the word masculinity guy like me doesn't feel like he needs to die program.

15-year old from this contact so he's just a symptom someone else will fill the Void we have to pay up to the about deprogramming a 15-year old son DVD program that you're going to do it and when I try to do is highlight some other examples of what I become masculinity and interesting basics basics when you start burning women for your problems.

You know you failed that means you feel that means you have lost the plot basics and we know from the news that the teachers and parents are engaging with an awful.

Lot of teenage boys at the moment because of Andrew takes content I must ask Madden and Helen before we wrap up about the experience of being on the receiving a lack of Enthusiasm shall we say from people who support the kind of figures Mike Andrew Tate is or the other featured in Helen's program as well cos I'm assuming.

As well as being punched in the face and number of times during your visits since you left Romania you've also been attacked repeatedly online.

Yeah, that's right.

I've got you know hundreds of death threats and also you know claim hundreds of winning in the hundreds of death threat yes, yeah and also claims that I've paid the women you no money to be in the film Dr the voice notes that are clearly in Andrew Tate voice away appears to discuss these Crimes of abuse you know that's come through yet in a big way and how about you when you made your program has been one of them.

I mean I was worried because you say it lots of these Communities are innately hostile to the mainstream Media they don't want to engage with you and I think you will only ever stitched and any kind of objectivity is kind of taking his offensiveness, but it was one of the less alarming response response I've ever had but this is a can continuously for Genesis luckily.

Organisations are becoming better at safeguarding their reported from this but if you are reporting on Communities like this you should expect everything from death threats to doxing two people trying to hack into your emails to your social media accounts and these organisations have to have a duty of responsibility to protect and support jenlisa.

No circumstances that final.if whole Communities are set up to be suspicious of the mainstream your advocating mainstream Media evolved what it is, but perhaps it can't reach those people because they already have a fixed view of the type of media content that will be coming from those sources out of my network my opinion reverse engineers to every anytime you have an albatraoz you transition something to another sources emissions whether to all the petroleum worth attention to advertise.

Can we have these mediums now? They're proper motivate or some of the most talented people in well resource companies have a profit motive in elevator content in a radius people cousin Rachel

And there's a real externality to that in until we hold these platforms to the same responsibility and accountability that we were told the BBC or than your time to the Atlantic they're going to continue to engage and it's what is and let people continue to smoke or put carbon into the earth that simple yesterday.

We appreciate it.

That's professor Scott Galloway you can hear him on the property and the pivot podcast thanks as well.

Helen Lewis staff writer at the Atlantic you can hear her recent series the new the new through BBC sounds and just in 10 seconds.

When do we get to see your vice documentary scene in the UK that is called the Dangerous rise of Andrew Tate and it's from bison as you can discussing mad is reporter.

Thanks.

All three of us will be back the same time next week.