Just when you thought the world had finally forgotten about him, Andrew Tate has made his way back into the news cycle in the most unpredictable way.
Last week, Labour Māori’s Instagram page posted a story using a GIF of the disgraced influencer. That is a big oopsy and pretty crazy to do as a social media manager who should be chronically online.
The story was a screenshot of a news article about Labour leader Chris Hipkins at Rātana. At the bottom of the story is a sticker of Tate with the word ‘CORRECT!’ next to him.
Credit: NZHerald via Labour Māori Instagram
For those that don't know: Tate built an online following sharing a misogynistic worldview as the self-proclaimed "king of toxic masculinity" and is currently facing charges of human trafficking and rape.
Yesterday, Hipkins responded, saying that it was just a mistake and that the social media person did not know who Tate was.
“They were selecting the animation for the word, rather than for the person,” he said, as reported by RNZ. “They're quite mortified now to know who the person was used in that GIF.”
“It does not in any way reflect the views of the person who did the post,” adding it is “certainly something that we’ll be taking steps to avoid happening in the future.”
Māori caucus co-chair Willie Jackson told the NZHerald that it was “clearly an error” and they’ve taken action to make sure no more out-of-touch GIFs are used.
“Instagram is an important channel for the Labour Māori Caucus and comprehensive steps have been put in place to ensure such an error does not happen again,” Jackson said.
If the social media manager truly did not know who Tate was, then I guess it's fine. But good golly, they need to hire a Gen Z person to review everything they post now.
This is the most embarrassing Instagram story of the year, but last year there were some absolutely unhinged posts made by politicians during the election cycle and they were fully intentional. We're talking about Chris Luxon thirst-traps and David Seahorse. You've been warned.
