The BBC has been accused of trying to cover up an interview with influencer Andrew Tate, which has been blocked from being viewed by UK-based YouTube users, after receiving criticism for apparent bias and for heavily editing the video.
After previously trolling a former VICE reporter into flying to Bucharest on the false promise of an interview, kickboxing champion turned social media star Andrew Tate granted the BBC “the privilege” of his first interview after being released from Romanian prison into house arrest custody in April.
However, before the British public broadcaster aired the interview, Tate pre-empted what he suspected would be a legacy media hit job by releasing his own footage of the 40-minute sit-down with the BBC’s Lucy Williamson on his Rumble channel. The BBC quickly released their own version of the interview a few hours later, apparently hastily cobbled together given several sloppy edits, and cut down to just 9 minutes.
There has been backlash over the BBC’s edited version from some, and given the message that greets British users of the YouTube platform when they attempt to now watch the video — “the uploader has not made this video available in your country” — it appears the BBC have decided to shut the clip down. At the time of this reporting, the video, which is still available outside of the UK, has over 160,000 dislikes compared to just 19,000 upvotes on YouTube.
Clips of the interview remain online for those in the UK on the BBC website itself. Breitbart London has approached the BBC for comment on the logic behind their hit-and-miss approach to self-censorship.
Andrew Tate’s brother Tristan Tate accused the broadcaster of having a political agenda behind the decision to block the video regionally, saying: “It’s almost as though there is an agenda to paint my brother in a negative light. When the attack fails, make sure nobody in England sees it.”
The interview focussed on questions regarding controversial and out-of-context statements Tate made over the years, and his alleged impact on spreading hate in England and elsewhere, with the interviewer claiming that his online persona came with a dash of “misogyny”.
At one point, Williamson repeated a debunked claim that Tate had advocated attacking a woman with a machete. The claim goes back to a video where Tate discusses a hypothetical scenario of what he would do if a woman attacked him with a machete.
Tate remarked that he could easily take comments made by Williamson and make her appear violent or unhinged. This was picked up by fans on TikTok, who produced a video taking remarks of the BBC interviewer out of context, satirically underlining the potential power of dishonest editing Tate has accused the broadcaster of.
Throughout the interview, Mr Tate maintained that he was a positive force in the world, particularly for young men, saying: “I preach hard work, discipline. I’m an athlete, I preach anti-drugs, I preach religion, I preach no alcohol, I preach no knife crime. Every single problem with modern society, I’m against. I’m teaching young men to be disciplined, to be diligent, to listen, to train, to work hard, to be exactly like me.”
The influencer, who rose to international fame last year, became one of the most searched-for men in the world after consistently going viral on platforms such as TikTok with videos criticising modern feminism, globalist governance, and the perceived weaknesses of Millennial and Gen-Z men in the West.
In December of last year, Tate was arrested alongside his brother Tristan and two women by Romanian authorities, accused of human trafficking women and rape. The pair were held in prison for three months and remain under house arrest now despite the British-American brothers not having been charged with any crime.
Tate has maintained his innocence and repeated those remarks in the BBC interview, but refused to go into detail given that the case is still pending. He blamed his arrest on the “Matrix” and compared his situation to that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
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