Online 'incel' accounts rebranded to get round TikTok regulations

Advocates of "incel" ideology are rebranding as "Sub5s" and adopting the language of self-improvement to push their content on TikTok, according to a study.

- Daniel Boffey

Hateful material is banned from the social media site but accounts disseminating the beliefs are said to be hiding behind new terms and more "socially palatable" language.

One of the tenets of the involuntary celibate, or incel, ideology is the belief that society is organised based on a looks-based hierarchy.

Pseudo-scientific theories about self-improvement and attractiveness that are often misogynist in nature are now being promoted and "normalised", it is claimed.

Anda Iulia Solea, a researcher at the school of criminology and criminal justice at Portsmouth University, said this included a theory referenced in the Netflix drama Adolescence that suggests 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men.

Another concept pushed by accounts on TikTok is that of the "PSL" scale, under which it is claimed that men can be ranked from one to eight according to attractiveness.

The PSL acronym comes from the first letters of three incel sites: PUAhate, Sluthate and Lookism.net.