Controversial influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate are suing Meta and TikTok for banning their social media accounts in 2022.
Romanian authorities have charged the Tate brothers, who are dual U.S.-British citizens and former boxers, with human trafficking. Andrew Tate is also charged with rape. In Britain, both brothers were charged with rape and other crimes, prosecutors said in May. They both have denied any wrongdoing.
The brothers are prominent figures in the “manosphere,” a loose network of online communities known to elevate extreme interpretations of masculinity that are often hostile to women. Andrew Tate, in particular, gained notoriety on social media, where he was also widely criticized for spreading misogynistic rhetoric to his millions of followers.
In two lawsuits filed last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Tate brothers accuse TikTok and Meta of defaming and unlawfully “deplatforming” them by removing their social media accounts.
The two were banned in 2022 from Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook for violating the platforms’ community guidelines. They were reinstated on Twitter (now X) after Elon Musk took over ownership, but they appear not to have returned to other platforms. The lawsuits focus on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. They do not mention YouTube or its parent company, Google.
Attorneys for the Tates, as well as representatives for Meta and TikTok, did not respond to requests for further comment Monday.
The lawsuits, which are largely identical, claim the removals of their accounts were “not an isolated enforcement action grounded in neutral application of its Terms of Use, rather, it was the culmination of a coordinated campaign to suppress, silence, and destroy the reputations and livelihoods of two controversial but law-abiding men.”
The brothers also allege that the “deplatforming” was done without notice or explanation and that it violated contractual agreements and stripped them of their main sources of revenue. Their brand and business model relied heavily on their social media engagement, the lawsuits say, and their removals from the platforms led to “substantial and irreplaceable financial loss and damage.”
TikTok and Meta “inflicted” “substantial financial, reputational, and emotional harm,” according to the lawsuit. The brothers said they took legal action “to ensure that even the most powerful technology companies remain accountable when they act as instruments of government censorship and suppress constitutionally protected speech in violation of federal and state law,” the lawsuits say.
Andrew Tate, 38, and Tristan Tate, 37, reside in Romania and Dubai, according to the lawsuits. They briefly left Romania to go to the United States after a travel ban on them was lifted. They made an appearance at UFC 313 in Las Vegas in March after they touched down in Florida in February.
In May, the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service charged both brothers with rape, human trafficking and other crimes, leading Romanian courts to issue an order to extradite them to the U.K. once their court case there ends. Florida also opened a criminal investigation against them this year after they visited the state.
In 2023, they filed a defamation suit in Palm Beach County, Florida, Circuit Court against people they claim provided false evidence to Romanian authorities and conspired to deceive officials to have them wrongfully imprisoned. A woman countersued in February this year, claiming the brothers tried to lure her into a webcam sex trafficking ring.
The Tates’ lawsuits note that while they were “arrested in Romania and placed under house arrest in connection with criminal investigations, neither was, or has been, convicted of human trafficking or sexual exploitation.”
“Despite this, TikTok and other actors repeatedly invoked these allegations to justify censorship and reputational damage, again with no opportunity for Plaintiffs to question or dispel such false and malicious accusations,” the lawsuits say.
The platforms enabled defamation of the brothers by “refusing to clarify or support” their reasons for banning their accounts, thus “allow[ing] widespread media narratives to suggest criminality,” according to the lawsuits.
Andrew Tate has previously pushed back against the criticisms of his online presence, telling NBC News in November 2022 that he is playing an “online character.”
He said at the time that he makes “many videos praising women” and that his coaching involves teaching men “to avoid toxic people as a whole.” Tate said he tells his audience to avoid “low value people,” including “toxic men.”
Andrew Tate wrote Sunday on X that he is shelling out money (he says “400,000,000 of personal funds”) to battle the platforms and those who tried to “cancel” him, including “mainstream media across Australia UK and USA,” as well as “every single girl who lied about me.”
