The Andrew Tate effect: The internet is fuelling a new wave of MISOGYNY, scientist claims

Society has regressed in its treatment of women as the internet fuels a new wave of misogyny, a scientist claims.

Deborah Cameron, professor of language and communication at the University of Oxford, says the Internet has allowed sexism to evolve into a new modern form.

Rather than becoming a thing of the past, Professor Cameron argues that figures such as Andrew Tate and Donald Trump have promoted new forms of misogyny.

TikTok and other online forums have created spaces where sexist ideas can be freely promoted, leading to an increase in verbal threats and abuse against women.

Professor Cameron says sexism has now become part of “run-of-the-mill” advertising, comedy and reporting.

In her book, ‘Language, Sexism and Misogyny’, Professor Cameron argues that sexism has evolved into a form that reflects current conditions and digital culture.

Part of this shift has been the emergence of a particularly extreme new version of masculinity that has spread through extremely active online communities.

“The internet has allowed the most extreme, obsessive and dangerous misogynists to meet and interact intensely,” Professor Cameron told MailOnline.

In the past, Professor Cameron says these individuals “may have only shared their views or violent fantasies with a few trusted confidants in the pub or the locker room.”

“This is the effect of what is called the ‘manosphere’, a collection of forums that host subcultures such as incels, pickup artists and male supremacists who often also actively participate in other types of extreme politics such as white nationalism. or neo-Nazism,” he said. aggregate.

Professor Cameron says figures such as Andrew Tate have been particularly influential in spreading this new extreme form of misogyny online.

Tate, who is currently awaiting trial on charges of human trafficking and creating a criminal gang to exploit women, has amassed millions of followers and is particularly popular with young men and boys.

Professor Cameron says Tate has benefited from social media algorithms that promote controversial and harmful content.

“It has billions of followers because it knows how to use the algorithms that decide what users on platforms like TikTok and YouTube will be invited to watch,” Professor Cameron says.

“Tate’s influence is partly to do with the content he produces – if he didn’t appeal to anyone, he wouldn’t be the phenomenon he is – but it’s also to do with the way technology amplifies things.

“A Victorian misogynist communicating through religious sermons or printed tracts might have reached many people, but not billions around the world.”

MPs recently urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to tackle the radicalization and “brainwashing” of schoolchildren by Andrew Tate content.

However, she also claims that Tate is just part of a broader, normalized acceptance of sexism and misogynistic language in everyday life.

Professor Cameron says this new wave of sexism in society has led to women facing more abuse both on and offline.

“Digital interactive media makes it very easy to harass people anonymously with abusive and threatening messages,” Professor Cameron told MailOnline.

“We know that since the beginning of the digital age there has been a huge increase in online abuse specifically targeting women, especially women with a public profile.”

Influential public figures such as Vice President Kamala Harris and eco-activist Greta Thunberg have been particularly exposed to a rise in sexist abuse, Professor Cameron says.

While Professor Cameron says threats and harassment have always been a risk for women in public life, the ease of communication over the internet has “greatly increased the scale of the problem”.

She adds that there is growing concern that “extremely graphic death threats and rape” are making it difficult for women to participate in politics and public life.

Meanwhile, online groups such as the ‘Tradwife’ movement are actively advocating for a return to a time when women did not participate in public life at all.

Traditional wives promote a lifestyle in which the woman in a relationship is completely subordinate to her husband and makes maintaining a home and raising a family her primary concern.

Professor Cameron also told MailOnline that AI tools like ChatGPT are amplifying sexism and reflecting biases in the data they are trained on.

Because big language models require large amounts of data obtained online, they incorporate the sexism encoded in that data.

For example, Professor Cameron suggests that if the majority of photographs of doctors online are of men, then AI will only generate images of male doctors.

“A bias that already exists is not only reproduced but exaggerated,” says Professor Cameron.

However, Ms Cameron adds that “AIs don’t know: they know nothing about the world, only the way it is represented in the texts and images they can process.”