Apple has withdrawn an app created by Andrew Tate after accusations that it encouraged misogyny and could be an illegal pyramid scheme.
Tate created the app, Real World Portal, after the closure of his “Hustler’s University”, which was an online academy for his fans, promising to assist them in making thousands of pounds while helping Tate’s videos on social media, which have been described as misogynistic, to go viral.
McCue Jury & Partners, the firm representing four British women who have accused Tate of sexual and physical assault, claimed that the app deliberately targets young men and encourages misogyny, including members of the app sharing techniques on how to control and exploit women. The firm has also claimed that there is evidence to suggest that the app is an illegal pyramid scheme, with members being charged $49.99 a month to join.
Last week, the Real World Portal app was removed from Google’s Play store after claims that it was an illegal pyramid scheme and encouraged misogyny.
On Friday night Apple also said it had removed it from its app store. It followed a letter from the legal firm asking Apple to consider whether the app was in line with its policies and whether the company was exposing itself to any corporate liability in hosting it on its platform.
Part of the letter, dated 15 September, said: “We are writing because our clients are extremely concerned that you are hosting Tate’s Real World Portal (RWP) mobile application on your Apple Store … In continuing to host RWP, not only is Apple potentially indirectly financing Tate’s alleged criminal activities but is aiding the spread of his misogynistic teachings.”
The firm had claimed that Apple was directly profiting from hosting the app, with the company taking 30% in royalties from apps and in-app purchases.
Four women in their late 20s and early 30s are pursuing civil proceedings against Tate over alleged offences between 2013 and 2016 while he was still living in the UK.
Before the news that Apple had withdrawn the app, Matt Jury, the lawyer representing the women, said: “Andrew and [his brother] Tristan Tate manipulate their significant online following to promote subscriptions to Real World Portal. From there, the benefits to users are entirely reliant upon new subscribers joining the platform.
“There is also significant evidence that this scheme is directly targeting boys and teenagers and, in my view, is nothing more than an exploitative app which has no place on Apple’s platform.”
Tate is awaiting trial in Romania on charges of human trafficking. He and Tristan were charged in June, along with two Romanian female suspects, with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. The suspects have denied the allegations.
A spokesperson for Andrew Tate said: “We unequivocally deny the allegations that ‘The Real World’ app operates as a pyramid scheme or perpetuates harmful techniques aimed at exploiting any individuals, particularly women. The user community, which includes a significant number of women within the 200,000-strong user base, can attest to the positive impact and educational value the app provides.
“Accusations suggesting otherwise are unfounded, lacking credible evidence, and seem to be part of a targeted campaign against Andrew Tate, a known supporter and promoter of the platform. ‘The Real World’ maintains a commitment to complete transparency, ensuring compliance with all legal and ethical standards. We invite sceptics to examine the app independently and affirm that it operates in accordance with legal and moral requirements.
“The platform is designed as an educational tool that fosters healthy habit formation, financial literacy, and self-discipline, with thousands of lives positively impacted. The decision by Google Play is being appealed.”
Ok, I'll try to explain the issue with that. Do I have the right to pay someone to kill you? No. Then there's already a limitation on my speech AND use of private property. How can we reconcile that with free speech? By thinking about why free speech or any human rights matters. I could go on a dissertation here, but I'll skip what is easy to find online anyway and jump to the conclusion: human rights are positive rights that are intended to protect human dignity (in the philosophical sense of the indivisible and equal worth of all human life), so it follows that free speech only applies to speech that doesn't go against that goal. If you don't do this exercise you end up with the Paradox of Tolerance and all human rights crumble like a house of cards.
Right, and in society we have more or less agreed that the people who can exclude somebody's speech, or make speech disappear, is the judiciary following due process. Private companies are not the judiciary.
So if a court puts a gag order on this organization saying they can't have an internet presence, that's fine.
In your example, hiring a hitman against me, I would expect a court to enact protection order, and perhaps even a gag order on yourself. Then I would expect platforms online to honor that gag order if you were to post anyway.
If a private company, took it upon themselves to deplatform you without a court order, I would disagree with thatz even though your speech is against me. I hold this principle very highly, even when it's against my own individual personal interests, because I want a stable society more than anything else.
A stable society is not one where you can go to all of your neighbors and tell them a random person is a pedophile in order to start a mob in the name of free speech.
A stable society is not one where you can walk into a Walmart and start yelling the N-word but not get kicked out in the name of free speech.
A stable society is not one where you can sexually harass a co-worker without repercussions in the name of free speech.
You don't want a stable society, you want chaos.
I agree with your individual examples, but I would say a stable society is where any crazy crank can open a newsletter and mail it to people who subscribe to it. And the post office doesn't get in the way of that. Without a court order.
The post office is a government institution. Apple is not. That is a poor comparison and I think you know that.
I think I may have miscommunicated, I'm not saying Apple needs to keep their app in the store.
I was simply pointing out people in this position could use progressive web apps to avoid a web store completely.
I have no opinion that Apple needs to give a platform to anyone.
Private company’s policy isn’t dictated by anything but what can make them more money, which is by and large public opinion.
Public opinion is that this guy and his ilk are cunts and don’t deserve a platform.
Where your argument falls apart in the internet age, public policy or private policy, is that it’s so easy for this ooze, this tar, this black filth to fill into dark crevasses, one’s you don’t think of, don’t imagine, because they are naturally borne of their time. We don’t have time to even make public policy before they happen and become problems.
We have things like incel communities because these people feel lost, and have banded together to feel some sort of connection because of their joint feelings, but these feelings have a negative direction that leads to them being deeply troubling.
In a normal community these would be nipped in the bud because it wouldn’t travel very far without negative reaction, but with the internet people can find their pockets, positive and negative, and relish in those communities, for better or for worse.
So because a natural word of mouth community can’t rid the spread of these ideals, and our systems of governance, especially internationally, can’t keep up with them, we’re supposed to just let them spread because the internet has this new electric borne free speech?
If the idea can’t stand the germination through natural lifecycles, then why does it deserve to stand an unnatural one?
And so I posit, why does a private entity need to wait for a public one to make a decision, when the general public at large has already made it.
I must have miscommunicated earlier, I do not believe Apple or Google should be required to host anybody's applications. They're private entities and they're allowed their private opinions.
I brought up progressive web apps as a way for de-platformed organizations to side step app stores completely.
To borrow an analogy, I would not expect a grocery store to be compelled to carry a conspiracy theory journal, but I would expect the post office to have no opinions about mailing that journal to subscribers.