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Andrew Tate’s Hustler University affiliate program has suddenly closed down
Published 07:29 22 Aug 2022 BST
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Bye, Bye.
Controversial social media personality and former kickboxer Andrew Tate has been banned from Instagram and Facebook following action by holding company, Meta - and now his equally as controversial Hustler's University affiliate program has been shut down. The marketing program is blamed as a significant factor to the success of Tate's online success, encouraging enrolled members to recruit new ones and share videos of him in exchange for a commission. While it's currently unclear who's behind the shut down, an investigate report by the Guardian suggested Hustler's University ended the scheme, saying it has 'no future'. [caption id="attachment_354842" align="alignnone" width="879"]
Credit: Channel 4[/caption]
The so-called online educational program has no institutional accreditation but makes members pay a monthly fee to receive advice on topics such as cryptocurrency, e-commerce and stock trading.
The publication goes on to say that the closure f the scheme marks a major loss of Tate's income, with membership statistics for Hustler's University dropping from 127,000 to 109,000 in the past two weeks.
However, a post in the Hustler's Community forum told subscribers not to be concerned about the shut down while reassuring an 'exciting' update is coming soon, which could be referring to the upcoming launch of Hustler's University 3.0.
Yikes.
This comes after the ban from Facebook and Instagram was issued after it was deemed Tate, who has been accused of misogyny and promoting "rape culture", had violated their terms of service and multiple social media policies.
The 35-year-old influencer, podcaster and ex-MMA fighter was already being investigated by TikTok after a large section of its user base demanded he was removed from the platform.
The American-born Brit and former kickboxer found fame in back in 2016, when he was booted out of Big Brother following a video of him appearing to attacking a woman and calling her "[his] whore" was leaked on the internet.
Regardless, he has been developing a cult following ever since, especially among impressionable young men. He had 4.7 million Instagram followers alone when the account was taken down.
He was already banned on Twitter back in 2017 following a number of inflammatory and problematic posts, including claims that "depression isn't real". It would seem he has now made it a clean sweep on the major social media platforms, bar TikTok.
https://twitter.com/hopenothate/status/1560663177058484224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1560663177058484224%7Ctwgr%5Eeac7ac2058ac52d8a352b6a5da3902262bc75521%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.joe.co.uk%2Fentertainment%2Fandrew-tate-banned-from-instagram-and-facebook-354829
Joe Mulhall, director of research at UK advocacy group Hope Not Hate, said Mr Tate "poses a genuine threat to young men, radicalising them towards extremism misogyny, racism and homophobia".
The group went on to add: "We welcome Meta's swift action to remove Andrew Tate and we'll be putting pressure on TikTok to follow this example".
Meta state that they removed the former athlete from their platforms on the grounds of "dangerous organisations and individuals" but are yet provide specific details.
