Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Controversial manosphere influencer Andrew Tate has lost his Vanuatu citizenship.

The self-described misogynist, currently held in a Miami jail with his brother Tristan, purchased a Vanuatu passport under the country's citizenship-by-investment (CBI) scheme in 2022.

He faces extradition to the United Kingdom to face charges of rape, assault and sex trafficking, which Vanuatu government consultant Glen Craig told RNZ Pacific was likely the reason why he lost his citizenship.

"In my view, the citizenship should never have been granted in the first place," Craig, who helped to design the current CBI scheme, said.

"But to be fair to the government of the day, no charges had been laid at the time. The weakness was in the system, not in any one decision.

"The screening process did not properly test an applicant's character, conduct or public statements, and it was not as strong as it should have been."

Craig said the system Vanuatu had instituted of background checks and character assessments has improved significantly since Tate was granted citizenship.

"There is now a triple-check system in place, with independent screening at each stage," he explained.

"It is excellent to see the revocation power exists, and even better to see it exercised ... this response is a sign of Vanuatu's maturity."

Craig said to be a citizenship of another country, regardless of whether it was purchased or not, is a privilege.

"Vanuatu is no different from Australia (or) New Zealand ... every one of those countries has granted citizenship to people who have gone on to commit crimes or to behave in ways that are not in keeping with the values of that country.

"The test of a program is not whether that ever happens, but how the country responds when it does."

A Vanuatu passport carries a minimum price tag of US$130,000 for a single applicant.

Tate may soon be extradited to the UK to face charges of rape, assault and sex trafficking, which he denies.

BCKGROUND

A self-proclaimed misogynist, Andrew Tate is a British-American social media influencer who has risen to prominence due to his videos filled with toxic hatred of women. He has been banned from several platforms but keeps manipulating social media algorithms to circulate harmful and violent content, especially to young men. Social media companies have consistently failed to act on videos of Tate promoting extreme misogyny shared by his followers and copycat accounts.

Tate is facing 21 criminal charges in the UK, including rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain, and is facing trial in Romania for rape, human trafficking, and forming an organized crime group to sexually exploit women.

Tate’s accounts have since been banned from TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube due to content that violated these companies’ guidelines. Tate’s Twitter account was reinstated under Elon Musk despite being banned since 2016 for tweeting that women should bear “some responsibility” for rape.

The failure of social media platforms to stop the amplification of Andrew Tate’s ideology allows extreme misogyny to go viral and reach more and more young people and children. Harmful claims such as that women belong in the home and become man’s property when they get married are reportedly being mimicked by schoolboys and are becoming a growing cause of concern for teachers and parents. 

The online spread of toxic masculinity and normalization of violence against women present in Tate’s and other social media influencers’ speeches shape young men’s mentality and poses a real-life threat to women, according to reports online from Center for Countering Digital Hate.