I'd rather my government control the narrative my children are exposed to than Andrew Tate.
Edit: To expand, this is not just a flippant remark. People ignore Andrew Tate because he's so obviously, cartoonishly awful, but they are not the audience. It's aimed at children, and from personal experience its effect on a large number of them worldwide is profound, to the extent that I worry about the long term, generational effect.
Children will be exposed to narratives one way or another, and to want to (re)assert some control that over that isn't necessarily just an authoritatian power play.
The targets to control are not children. They don't need to be controlled, from an intelligence point of view. Government's attention is not infinite, and between worries of losing power and worries about the wellbeing of children, one of the two is the winner, and it's not the children. If children's well-being was the priority, you would see other stuff being made.
This sort of makes sense if our governments are, on the whole, 'better' than Andrew Tate, for some definition of 'better'. But as the slide goes on there will be a tipping point where our governments are worse, meaning them surveilling me becomes problematic. Best shout about it now than then.
Do you decline any responsibility in the moral upbringing of your children? I think you should be the one that decides how they interact with dubious content, not your government.
Counterpoint: Andrew Tate resonates with the younger generations because modern society (at least in the UK) appears to be an ever-growing middle finger to them and Tate promises a (fake, but believable) way out.
When your future looks like endless toil just so you can give half of the fruits of your labor to subsidize senile politicians/their friends (via taxes) and the other half to subsidize boomers (via rent), Tate's messaging and whatever get-rich-quick scheme he's currently hawking sounds appealing.
You can ban Tate but without solving the reason behind why people look up to him it's just a matter of time before another grifter takes his place.
Edit: To expand, this is not just a flippant remark. People ignore Andrew Tate because he's so obviously, cartoonishly awful, but they are not the audience. It's aimed at children, and from personal experience its effect on a large number of them worldwide is profound, to the extent that I worry about the long term, generational effect.
Children will be exposed to narratives one way or another, and to want to (re)assert some control that over that isn't necessarily just an authoritatian power play.