I’ve watched my son become ‘anti-women’ after Andrew Tate

It’s impossible to say how long we’ll have to wait for some form of meaningful regulation on the internet, or against “free speech” as some others say. Does the answer, perhaps, lie in the algorithms used? We all see how clicking on a video of the antics of a zany dog leads to one’s feed filling up with more and more videos of essentially the same thing. All well and good, until some young man clicks on an Andrew Tate video. What follows is a torrent of horrific monologues from people who appear successful, and appeal to today’s disillusioned population of young men. Suddenly the hate that the likes of Andrew Tate preach becomes gospel.

My son, having recently split from his girlfriend, has now suddenly started to sound distinctly anti-women. I presumed it was a phase in light of his personal life, but what’s new is the language he is using. It is the same rhetoric repeated time and time again by Tate. And this has all come about because of algorithms. The internet decides what content to watch for you, leading you down a rabbit hole without realising it. And that has to be changed.

We’ve been here before. Something has to give. And at the moment, the likes of Andrew Tate have such a pull for young men that an atmosphere of fear is already starting to grip young women. For me, all I can do is try to talk my son around, pointing him to factual information to show that statements made by Mr Tate are simply not true. But I don’t drive several Bugattis or have millions in the bank and, apparently, that is what makes you a world authority on just about every subject.

Anonymous

Address Supplied

In response to Steven Mackinder’s letter, you can argue that the result of Brexit was democratic but the approach then taken by successive governments was not. There has been a continued effort to create an ever-harder Brexit, purging anything even closely associated with Europe and erecting barriers. There has been no attempt at compromise, no recognition that the vote wasn’t won by an overwhelming majority (52/48 is close), and no real attempt to engage with those of us who support European integration and enjoyed the freedoms our citizenship brought.

It is true that the world economic situation is causing problems across Europe too. However, the impact on the UK is harder, deeper and looks to last a lot longer. Brexit is to blame. The Brexit we have now, the one the government chose, is the result of giving voice to the most extreme anti-European views in the Tory party.

David Newsham

Stirling

Some experts have claimed that past lockdowns have harmed children’s developing immune systems – that a lack of pathogens encountered during those few weeks away from the school environment has led to enhanced vulnerability to many other diseases. In light of this knowledge, surely it is now crucial to campaign to abolish the annual seven-week summer vacation?

During this time, large numbers of children do not have the opportunity to gather together in unventilated classrooms with up to 40 closely packed children and hence are denied the opportunity of being exposed to pathogen-laden air. If these experts are correct, this will surely lead to impaired immune function for years to come. To protect our children, we urgently need to do something about this. The obvious step is to abolish the long summer holiday and keep children in school at all times.

Dr N Boyd

Barnard Castle, Durham

Laying hen farmers across much of the UK have had to bring their birds indoors due to bird flu in order to stop the spread of the disease. This has been one of the worst outbreaks of avian influenza (AI) the UK has ever seen, with sadly many birds becoming ill and dying. A nationwide housing order has now been imposed, with egg shortages leading to imported eggs on supermarket shelves from potentially lower-welfare farms.

As a food campaigner and journalist for many years, I’m concerned about the impact bringing birds indoors has on their welfare. A recent poll, carried out by RSPCA Assured – the RSPCA’s ethical food label and farm assurance scheme – found that a whopping 87 per cent of people care about hen welfare and believe they should be given enrichment whilst housed indoors, so I’m clearly not alone. Just over half of the public also said they wouldn’t eat eggs that had come from caged hens.

With Pancake Day just around the corner, I want to help remind people that it’s very easy to make a big difference to the welfare of hens by only choosing eggs with a higher welfare label such as RSPCA Assured.

Kate Quilton

Broadcaster and RSPCA campaigner

What relevance would this have to their investigation into her disappearance? Given the rampant speculation there already is on this, it seems unhelpful to me that the police should choose to release essentially private information about a person who may still be alive.  

And in the context of an apparent dispute between the specialist water search experts and the police over whether she fell in the river, this doesn’t in my view cast the police in a good light. That, by extension, further calls into question the quality of the police investigation. Not to mention how upsetting it will be to her loved ones that this has been released.

Ian Henderson

Norwich