Candace Owens has taken a stand against social media bans — even for those she doesn’t agree with.
The Daily Wire host made it clear on her new daily podcast Friday that even though she thinks controversial internet personality Andrew Tate has “stupid” ideas, she doesn’t want him banned from social media. Owens played a montage of Tate explaining his unpopular opinions, one of which where argued that a man should get 80% his significant other’s earnings if she makes money off OnlyFans.
“Do I agree that if your girl has an OnlyFans account, as he once said, that you should be entitled to 80% of it because your woman is your property?” Owens asked. “No, I don’t agree with that. But I would host him and I would debate him on that. I’m not offended by him even saying it. I think it’s stupid, and I would debate him any day of the week on that because I think it’s just, it’s not even productive to society. But why is he getting banned for this?”
Owens believes Tate has filled a place called the “manosphere,” which she defines as where some public figures are attempting to define manhood in an extreme way. Tate has hit a nerve among a large swath of men and simultaneously caused meltdowns for his alleged misogynistic takes on manhood and womanhood. In another clip, Tate said that “anyone who’s honest” would want a male pilot flying a plane in a dangerous situation, not a female pilot.
The former professional kickboxer was banned from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok last month. A spokesman for Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta told NBC News that Tate violated the platform’s policies on “dangerous organizations and individuals.”
Tate argued that clips of him in “comedic character” are being taken out of context to misrepresent him. “It is very unfortunate that old videos of me, where I was playing a comedic character, have been taken out of context and amplified to the point where people believe absolutely false narratives about me,” the internet personality said in a statement.
Owens argued that Tate was really banned because he holds views that go against the leftist narrative, and she said that TikTok continues to platform people spreading far more dangerous ideas.
“People that are advocating for the castration of our children, teaching children that they can pick their gender and that they should want and aspire to go on puberty blockers, which we know causes irreparable harm to their bodies,” she said.
“What’s worse: these celebrities that are advocating for the harm of our children through all of these various means, or a guy that’s a part of a ‘manosphere’ that’s clearly playing a part?” Owens added.
The mother of two concluded that she sees Tate’s influence as a symptom of the culture’s weakening of the male role. Tate, and some other public figures like him, have arisen out of a society that constantly forces the opposite view of manhood on them, and Tate and his followers are hungry for male leadership, according to Owens.
“There is no society that can survive without strong men,” Owens explained. “So this is the natural response to a society that is impressing upon male weakness, you’re going to get the other extreme.”