In the five months since reinstating his Twitter account, Andrew Tate has gained more than 6 million followers.
his profile After he was detained in Romania and placed in house arrest.
The controversial influencer had 38,400 followers when his profile was brought back to the platform in November. Today, Tate has more than 6.4 million followers.
The popularity of Tate’s profile could generate considerable revenue for Twitter, with researchers estimating the platform could generate nearly £10m a year in advertising revenue from the traffic Tate generates.
He was banned from the platform in late October 2017 after posting inflammatory tweets, including a now-deleted post saying: “Next, if you put yourself in a situation where you were raped, you have to take some responsibility. I am It’s not that it’s okay if you get raped.”
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has reinstated some banned accounts. Tate was among those brought back on November 18, 2022.
The influencer marked his comeback by posting a picture of himself.
His account went from less than 40,000 followers to 1 million in 48 hours, an archived screenshot of Tate’s account shows.
Tate’s profile grew in popularity: a month after his account was reinstated, he had almost 3 million followers.
A month later, Andrew Tate had almost 3 million followers.Image: Twitter
Tate, a British and American citizen, was arrested in Romania on Dec. 29 and faces charges of sexual assault, exploitation, organized crime and human trafficking — all charges he denies.
That day, thousands of users decided to follow Tate. His followers grew from 3.4 million to 3.8 million in 24 hours. By December 31, he had 4 million followers.
His popularity soared again after he was released from prison on March 31 and placed under house arrest. He gained half a million followers that day.
At the time of writing, Tate has 6.4 million followers, which means that since November 18, Tate has added an average of about 40,000 followers per day.
Tate seems to be gaining followers at an unusually high rate.
Jordan B Peterson, another controversial online figure, was suspended from Twitter but brought back by Mr Musk on the same day as Tate.
Dr. Peterson’s follower list has grown from 3 million on November 18 to 4.1 million today.Image: Twitter
He had 3 million followers when he was brought back and now has 4.1 million.
Another comparison can be made to climate activist Greta Thunberg, who was involved in a high-profile Twitter spat with Tate when she was arrested.
Ms. Thunberg now has 5.8 million followers, compared to 5.1 million on December 29.Image: Twitter
From Dec. 29 to Dec. 5, Tate’s profile gained nearly a million followers. Ms Thunberg received 600,000 during the same period. Today, she has 5.8 million followers, surpassed by Tate.
Some well-known users’ follower accounts have been inflated by bots, which are automated profiles that can be purchased to artificially boost a profile’s popularity, or that may appear without the user’s consent or knowledge.
Under Mr Musk, some of Twitter’s technical changes mean researchers are now unable to test suspicious bots on the same scale as before, meaning it’s impossible to check Tate’s entire follower list robot.
But free software from cyber protection firm Norton enables users to see in real time whether a Twitter profile might be a bot, with users highlighted in red as suspicious.
Sky News ran the BotSight software on the top 100 profiles that recently tracked Tate as a small sample.
About half appeared to be genuine accounts, a quarter were questionable, and a quarter were suspicious. None were confirmed as bot accounts.
According to the Center Against Digital Hate (CCDH), Tate’s popularity on Twitter could bring in a lot of money for the platform.
Research shared exclusively with Sky News by the center found that the Tate account alone was responsible for an estimated £9.8m in annual advertising revenue for Twitter, prompting the researchers to argue that it may be the controversial account that was allowed back in. The reason for the platform.
Callum Hood, research director at CCDH, told Sky News: “Twitter made a deliberate decision to reinstate Andrew Tate and many other extremist accounts for commercial reasons.
“Because it’s the only mainstream platform where Andrew Tate’s personal account can still be found, it has now become a must-see attraction for his cult following.
“By simply giving him a platform, Twitter gave him all the legitimacy and exposure he needed to attract an army of new followers.”
CCDH found that Tate’s tweets generate an estimated average of 35 million “impressions” (how often a tweet is seen) per day, based on more than a month of his posts.
They used this data, along with their research on ad frequency and Twitter advertising costs, to estimate Twitter’s potential revenue associated with Tate.
Tate’s other social media accounts are not as popular as his Twitter.
He is currently still banned from Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, despite a recent Sky News investigation finding his content pushed to “testing” Teen’s account after over an hour on YouTube Shorts.
The influencer still has two channels on free speech video streaming platform Rumble. The more popular one has 1.16 million followers and has only added 295,000 in the time Tate has been back on Twitter.
Andrew Tate’s main Rumble account isn’t as popular as his Twitter profile.Image: Rumble
Social media expert Matt Navarra explained to Sky News why Tate’s following numbers differed so dramatically between the two social media platforms.
“Platforms like Rumble and others have a much smaller user base and are considered alternative social platforms that only appeal to people with fringe interests. For people that are banned everywhere else,” he said. It’s kind of like a second home.
“Compared to a social platform like Twitter that has hundreds of millions of users and is considered by most people to be mainstream, with broad appeal and broad interest, it’s not surprising to me that you won’t see such explosive growth.”
Sky News attempted to contact Twitter’s press office for this article. The company didn’t respond, but responded by sending an automated email containing the poop emoji, which is currently the default reply to all messages to the press office.
this Data and Forensics The team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to delivering transparent news coverage from Sky News. We collect, analyze and visualize data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting techniques with advanced analysis of satellite imagery, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while showing how our journalism is done.
Why data journalism matters to Sky News