It’s repressed/Getty Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have spoken out about the dangers of spreading misinformation online and now a new report has uncovered details of a monetized hate campaign against the Duchess of Sussex.
The Bot Sentinel data analytics service released a third and final report Tuesday on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, this time on how “single-purpose hate accounts have turned targeted harassment and coordinated hate campaigns into a lucrative for-profit enterprise of hate.”
According to the report, a network of YouTube channels focused on disparaging Meghan have more than 497 million views and an estimated $3.48 million in total combined YouTube earnings. Just three of the top content creators — YankeeWally, MurkyMeg, and Accord2taz — have over 70 million combined views and an estimated $494,730 in total YouTube earnings.
“The trio also coordinated their efforts on Twitter, cultivating a following by spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation about Harry and Meghan that were invented in the MeWe group,” the report found. “Their efforts allowed them to interact with real journalists and experts, who then, in some circumstances, amplified the falsehoods. The women took advantage of their popularity on Twitter to funnel their followers to their YouTube channels, where they would discuss the conspiracy theories they helped to manufacture.”
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ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
Twitter has suspended YankeeWally and MurkyMeg. According to 2taz, it is still an active account, but “Twitter’s reporting system has recognized that she has violated its rules on multiple occasions, including for abuse and harassment,” the report states.
In the service’s first report published in October, Bot Sentinel found that around 70 percent of hate comments about the couple on Twitter originated from just 83 accounts.
The service found that Twitter had previously suspended many of the accounts, but users were implementing tactics to avoid suspension, including placing “parodies” on their profiles.
“Others would use racist coded language about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex to avoid detection,” Bot Sentinel said in the report. “We’ve also seen a number of accounts block or completely deactivate their profiles to preserve their accounts.”
Bot Sentinel also found that Twitter’s algorithm was actively suggesting that they follow some of the hate accounts after seeing only two of them.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Meghan Markle and Prince Harry
Meghan, 40, and Prince Harry, 37, said goodbye to their joint Instagram account @SussexRoyal with a final post on March 30, 2020, one day before they officially stepped down from their roles as senior members of the family. real.
The couple appeared in teen therapy podcast in October 2020, where Meghan referred to being the “most trolled person in the entire world” the year before.
“I don’t care if you’re 15 or 25, if people say things about you that aren’t true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging,” Meghan said.
In early 2021, the Duke of Sussex spoke to fast company on the impact of the digital world, addressing reports about his approach to social media alongside Meghan.
“Ironically, we woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago to hear a Rupert Murdoch paper say we were obviously going to quit social media,” he said. “That was ‘news’ for us, considering we don’t have social media to drop, nor have we for the last 10 months.”
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Harry also noted that social media can “provide a means of connection and community, which are vital to us as human beings.”
“We need to listen to each other’s stories and be able to share our own. That’s part of the beauty of life,” he said. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that a digital space overhaul will create a world that’s all rainbows and sunshine, because that’s not realistic, and that’s not life either.”