Data from YouGov in 2023, on male opinions of Andrew Tate by age group, shows that while the majority remain unfavourable, increased awareness is associated with a higher likelihood of favourable views, even as overall unfavourability remains largely unchanged. Greater exposure to social media increases the likelihood of encountering harmful content, particularly for younger users who spend more time in digital spaces and have fewer cognitive and social safeguards against it. Australia’s decision to ban under-16s from social media therefore comes at a salient moment. It reflects growing impatience with platforms that continue to roll out new features, such as X’s Grok, while regulatory frameworks struggle to keep pace.

Furthermore, a growing body of research links high levels of screen time in children to poorer outcomes in language development, attention, memory, and problem-solving. These concerns are increasingly reflected in clinical practice. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC), which represents 23 medical royal colleges and faculties, has reported repeated testimony from frontline clinicians encountering severe harms associated with technology use across primary, secondary, and community healthcare settings. Doctors have described rising cases involving impaired concentration, reduced attention spans, and cognitive difficulties observed across multiple medical specialties. In response to the scale and consistency of these cases, the AoMRC has begun formally gathering evidence on the recurring cognitive and psychological impacts that may be attributed to prolonged exposure to digital platforms and devices.

Therefore, the case for meaningful change to laws on social media no longer rests on the behaviour of a marginal group or a handful of extreme personalities. It is increasingly grounded in concern about how digital environments shape cognition, attention, and susceptibility to simplified narratives at scale. When platforms reward repetition, emotional intensity, and binary thinking, they do more than contain harmful ideas. They create the conditions under which those ideas can move beyond private digital echo chambers and begin to cohere into movements, campaigns, and political identities.

So, when do these views break out of personal digital echo chambers and into movements and campaigns?

The link between Andrew Tate’s appeal and wider political dynamics becomes clearer when placed in the context of research on populism and sexism. Recent work by Marcos-Marne, Inguanzo, and de Zuñiga (2024) demonstrates that sexist attitudes are not merely adjacent to populist views but are positively correlated with them, even in cases where populism is otherwise weak. This suggests that misogyny is not simply tolerated within right-wing populism, but is integral to the psychological and ideological worldview it promotes. 

Tate’s worldview closely mirrors the core components of right-wing populism. Populism is defined by 

1. People-centrism, which draws a sharp boundary between a morally pure “people” and corrupt or illegitimate outsiders; 
2. Anti-elitism, which frames institutions, experts, and cultural authorities as immoral or hostile; 
3. A Manichean logic that reduces politics to a struggle between good and evil. 

In its exclusionary forms, populism often fuses anti-immigration sentiment with rigid gender hierarchies, positioning feminism and gender equality as threats to social order rather than advances in justice. Tate’s rhetoric follows this template almost perfectly, casting men as victims of a corrupt elite order and women as both prizes and problems within that system.

Crucially, this ideological package thrives on simplicity. Research from Erisen et al. show that people’s “need for cognition” differs and thus helps explain why such messages resonate unevenly. 

Individuals with a low need for cognition tend to prefer simple explanations and clear moral narratives over complex, multi-causal accounts of social problems. They are more receptive to slogans, blame attribution, and binary thinking, precisely the style of content that social media algorithms reward and amplify. By contrast, those with a high need for cognition are more likely to tolerate ambiguity, engage with structural explanations, even when they hold strong views.

This helps explain why Tate’s influence does not persuade the majority, but does consistently mobilise a minority: his ideas offer emotionally satisfying, cognitively economical answers to real feelings of alienation, status anxiety, and loss of control. Social media does not create these dispositions, but it accelerates their formation and hardens them through repetition, affirmation, and isolation within digital echo chambers.

From this perspective, a simple ban on social media for young people is best understood as a starting point rather than a solution. It may reduce exposure during formative years, particularly for those most vulnerable to simplistic and exclusionary worldviews. But it also forces a more difficult question: if harmful ideas flourish because they are easy, emotionally resonant, and constantly reinforced, then countering them requires investment elsewhere. That means building environments (educational, cultural, and civic) that enrich young people cognitively, rather than merely restricting them technologically. It means fostering critical thinking, media literacy, and social belonging that does not rely on grievance or domination.

The risk posed by Andrew Tate’s supporters is not that they form a majority, nor that they will inevitably coalesce into organised extremism. It is that a digitally amplified minority can normalise exclusionary ideas, seed broader populist movements, and shape political discourse before institutions are ready to respond. Responsibility therefore lies less with individual users than with the platforms that design, reward, and monetise these dynamics. A social media ban may not solve the problem, but it signals a shift in seriousness. As long as outrage, grievance, and extremism remain profitable, platforms will continue to host them. Regulation is not about silencing speech, but about forcing accountability where market incentives have consistently failed.