How just 83 Twitter accounts 'created firestorm of hate against Meghan and Harry'

It's long been known that when Meghan Markle and Prince Harry decided to step down as senior members of the Royal Family in 2020, it was partially driven by the slew of online hatred the two were receiving.

In the latest episode of Meghan & Harry, viewers learned that the media and online attacks had an extremely detrimental effect on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's mental health.

A report from Bot Sentinel has revealed that much of that online hate was targeted and coordinated by a group of Twitter accounts.

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Of more than 114,000 analysed tweets, Bot Sentinel found that 70 per cent could be traced back to 83 accounts - mainly run by white women.

These Twitter accounts organized a "hate and disinformation campaign" against Meghan and Prince Harry by fabricating and disseminating "false narratives and altered photos of Meghan Markle on Twitter and other social media platforms."

@cbouzy

According to Bot Sentinel creator Christopher Bouzy, even after some of the Twitter accounts were suspended for violating Twitter's rules, they returned.

“This campaign comes from people who know how to manipulate the algorithms, manipulate Twitter, stay under the wire to avoid detection and suspension,” Bouzy told BuzzFeed News.

“This level of complexity comes from people who know how to do this stuff, who are paid to do this stuff.”

Bouzy found that several of the people behind the anti-Meghan Twitter accounts also had YouTube channels they were profiting from by creating "low-quality YouTube videos targeting Harry and Meghan."

The Bot Sentinel report found that the group behind the Twitter accounts mainly consisted of "middle-aged Caucasian women located in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia."

Together, they created an online community of people against Meghan.

Members of the community used derogatory words when speaking about the Duchess, disseminating conspiracy theories about Meghan and Harry, and tried to discredit "anyone they felt contradicted their narrative about the couple" including journalists.

Bouzy tweeted on Thursday night, following the premiere of the last three episodes of Meghan & Harry, that the campaign continued with negative reviews on the Netflix documentary.

"We analyzed 1475 Harry & Meghan Rotten Tomatoes reviews, and 85% of the reviews were made by accounts with only one review," Bouzy wrote.

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