Evidence that dozens of women were groomed into online sex work by members of influencer Andrew Tate’s “War Room” group has been uncovered by the BBC.

Leaked internal chat logs identify 45 potential victims between March 2019 and April 2020 but the total number is likely to be higher.

The texts also appear to show the techniques used by War Room members to exploit possible victims.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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    Mr Tate says the War Room - which costs $8,000 (£6,300) a year to join - is a network of powerful men and those who want to learn from them.

    However, the leaked online chats indicate the War Room teaches members through its so-called “PhD” course - the initials stand for “Pimpin’ Hoes Degree” - how to groom women into sex work.

    Members are instructed by some of the War Room leadership - known as “generals” - to romantically seduce, emotionally manipulate and socially isolate women before luring them into performing on webcams - often taking all or most of the money they make.

  • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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    I know this is not gonna be some revelation, but: I have literally never encountered someone who makes their whole identity about being an Alpha for the sake of getting women, being superior to other men, etc, who doesn’t have some deep insecurity at the heart of it (and not very well hidden).

    Mostly the dudes who are what Andrew Tate wants to be have interests like fishing or carpentry or business or some particular sports team. They don’t spend all their time in the “war room” scheming with other dudes how they can work together to trick women into having sex with them.

    • d00phy@lemmy.world
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      scheming with other dudes how they can work together to trick women into having sex with earning money for them.

      FTFY

      Call him what he is: a pimp. He made his money pimping women online. They’re not full blown prostitutes, AFAIK, but he’s still just a pimp. The dangerous part is he’s successfully parlayed this into a “hustle mindset” to get rich, when pimping and conning people into paying him for his “wisdom” is how he got rich. So he’s also a conman.

      That’s the dangerous thing about him. My step-kids think he’s worth listening to because, “it’s just different for men, you know?” No I don’t know, and I’ve been a man a lot longer than this asshole or them. Any time I ask them to explain it to me, they can’t. “It’s just different.” It’s not that I think my step kids are going to start grooming women for sex work, but it’s entirely possible that they’re subconsciously seeing women as “less than” and painting it as “men’s responsibility to protect and provide.” And that’s pretty toxic IMO.

      • mustardman
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        1 year ago

        That last part sounds pretty tough to deal with as a parent. It’s hard to deprogram people from brainwashing.

    • Skoobie@lemmy.film
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      Not to mention that the entire “Alpha Male” philosophy was disproven by the very same guy who hypothesized it. My dude went back to check out the same family of wolves years later to see how things had gone and guess what? The “Betas” he’d witnessed weren’t the inferior members of the pack at all. They were the kiddos. The “Alphas” he’d witnessed being recognized as superior by the “Betas” were actually just the parents raising their kids. He tried to tell the world how he’d fucked up but by then the damage was done and nobody was listening.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      Per the article, the leader of the “War Room” is a 60+ year old man who has been involved with “at least two cults.”

      Everyone who falls for Tate’s schtick is always some lost little boy with no sense of purpose, often occupying a grown man’s body.

    • FaeDrifter@midwest.social
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      Oh yeah, that’s the whole point. Grifters, cult leaders, and other social predators are intentionally targeting the most vulnerable demographics.

    • Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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      I’d rather not imagine it. There’s an entire population of failed men who lost the chance to ever make something of themselves when they decided to make idolizing rapists a part of their identity politics.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        The truly terrifying part is that it’s not just men. Lots of teenage boys look up to Tate. That scares the shit out of me. The fallout from him will be multi-generational.

      • chakan2@lemmy.world
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        The important question there is why are there so many failed men in the first place.

        You have to be utterly desperate and broken to look up to a slug like Tate.

        • boogetyboo@aussie.zone
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          Or very young and impressionable without a loud enough opposing influence. My understanding is that young teens and even pre teens are being exposed to this way of thinking through their social media algorithms. Yes, parents need to be on top of their kids screen times, but no one is perfect and this shit is insidious.

          • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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            A friend recently told me about the fear he has that his young sons will find and latch onto shit like this without his knowing. He described seeing a concerning image in a YouTube video that his young teen was watching, making him play the audio out loud to see what was being said, and then screening that channel later to understand the content. It was benign, but so many kids go down these dark paths without their parents being aware until it’s too late.

            It gave me a new appreciation for how difficult it must be to be a parent in modern times. I found it frightening.

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              I’m an elder millennial so my peers who are parents are savvy to the web and grew up enough with it to know its dangers. But it’s also such an intrinsic part of kids’ lives these days. When I was a kid it was a fun extra - a recreational activity like sport or watching movies. Now it’s a legitimate and necessary part of their schooling, their social interaction, their understanding of the world, and a communication channel with peers and family.

              I honestly don’t know how my friends navigate the complexity of it. Like you said, it’s frightening.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                For me, it’s very simple. I just talk to my daughter about what she’s watching. Maybe that’s not enough for some parents. Maybe their kids won’t tell them. I’m sure my daughter doesn’t tell me everything she watches (I bet she watches porn sometimes), but I have a general idea of what she believes overall about the world, so I know what she is watching is not doing harm. She’s a very caring, empathetic person who wants to make the world a better place.

                • boogetyboo@aussie.zone
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                  I’m sure you’re doing a great job, but I guess the subject was inceldom and the influence of Tate et al. As a woman myself, I know stranger danger in all mediums has been on the mind of every woman, since I was a child. It’s the boys that the influence can turn to dangerous and rotten places, to the detriment of, in the case of incel ideologies, the safety of women.

      • gummybootpiloot@lemmy.world
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        Not even, I know men in stable relationships with good jobs that look up to this guy for some reason or another. Its absolutely ridiculous. They think he got arrested for “his opinions”.

  • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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    Legitimately one of the few people in the world I’m not sure I wouldn’t just attack if I saw them in the streets. There’s a lot pieces of shit out there. A lot who have or had a really big effect, like Trump or Höcke or Rogan or so. But Tate is a special kind of disgusting, horrible and not worthy of, frankly, the air he gets to breathe.

  • Clav64@lemmy.ml
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    I have a friend who keeps defending him, often deflecting to attack the people writing the article (i.e. BBC) and then ranting about Epstein Island and the Clinton’s etc…

    Yet here we have a man who has videos of himself talking about trafficking, coercion and abuse of women - and more evidence of them openly discussing it like a grooming gang, yet my friend continues to say words to the effect of “it’s the elites trying to take him down for telling the truth”

    Honestly, I just do not get it, and would appreciate anyones advice who has maybe faced similar issues how to get through to them.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      You can’t reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. Your best bet, if you wanted to try, is to probably use emotion. Maybe talk about how emasculating it must be to follow this guy who needs to groom women or something. Idk.

      • elscallr@lemmy.world
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        You can’t reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

        Nicely put.

      • Clav64@lemmy.ml
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        I’m appealing to help on the internet, I’m pretty much exhausted and this is my last gasp to find a way to help him tbh.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      Surely the elitists would be hiding evidence of his crimes and then using his services.

      Fucking conspiracy theories can’t keep a straight story.

    • Zelaf@sopuli.xyz
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      Because he got rich by abusing women and talking online about how great that is. Then proceeds to trick younger generations to have a toxic mindset about life, mental health and how to treat people around you and especially how to treat women.

      If we don’t share, discuss and argue against his crimes, abuse and manipulation on social media, minds will probably have a harder time to change.

      Speak up, spread awareness and help people either stay in toxicity and not get anywhere in life or grow and have a better understanding of how things actually are.

        • d00phy@lemmy.world
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          Wanted to reply to this earlier. I’m so sorry for this. Hope you and your daughter can address that together.

      • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
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        I’m not giving this person any platform, not even one you mentioned. Because this is what offenders like him want. The only right way to deal with him is putting him in court.

        • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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          It’s good to talk about, and when able to, make fun of these groups and types of actions, so possible potential victims can see this and not go down the same incel pipeline.

          The KKK took a hit in their growing numbers when comic book nerds made them a joke in a Superman radio show. They later made it into a comic and published so more people would know about the Klans code words and rituals and remove the mystery that drives newcomers.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_Smashes_the_Klan

  • ChrisLicht@lemm.ee
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    Good time for Romania to add hobbling to its schedule of available punishments for pimping at scale.

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    Is there more noise around his trials than subtance ?? . It seems like it is moving nowhere. and he knew how to stay within the gray zone