Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, is a member of the British royal family, and in the line of succession to the British throne, after his brother Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, his sons and daughter.
And Harry's wife, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, is an American member of the family, and also a former actress.
Harry and Meghan have long become the attention of the media, especially after their decision to step back from their royal life. Haters on the internet have since launched campaigns against the couple.
And on Twitter, where people can just speak about anything and be heard, a Twitter analytic service called Bot Sentinel released in its reports page, a report examining Twitter activity related to the two Sussexes .
In the report, it is realized that the hate campaigns made against the two royals were actually a coordinated campaign made by at least 83 accounts.
In an analysis of more than 114,000 tweets about the couple, 70% of the negative and often hateful content come from just that small group of people.
Bot Sentinel’s analysis revealed that the small group of people carried out a level of sophistication and coordination between the accounts, who use their combined 187,631 followers to fuel a campaign of negativity against Harry and Meghan.
Read: Prince Harry And Meghan's Deals With Netflix And Spotify, Following The Royal Family Chaos
Bot Sentinel is a crowdfunded website and browser plugin.
What it does, is analyzing the activity of Twitter accounts, and use the data to identify users who violate the platform's terms of service. The bot evaluates accounts and assigns them a score based on the likelihood that they are either run by a bot or by someone engaging in targeted harassment, trolling, or other behavior banned by Twitter’s rules.
Bot Sentinel has unearthed some controversies and right-wing campaigns, fake news regarding COVID-19 and more. But this hate campaign against the two royals is nothing like those.
Bot Sentinel CEO Christopher Bouzy told BuzzFeed News that the anti-Meghan Twitter campaign is unlike anything he and his team have ever seen before.
"There’s no motive," he said, as he compared the anti-Meghan campaign to other disinformation and harassment campaigns on Twitter.
"Are these people who hate her? Is it racism? Are they trying to hurt [Harry and Meghan’s] credibility? Your guess is as good as ours."
Bouzy emphasized that the negative Twitter activity is not fueled by automated bot accounts, but real accounts run by humans.
"This campaign comes from people who know how to manipulate the algorithms, manipulate Twitter, stay under the wire to avoid detection and suspension," he said. "This level of complexity comes from people who know how to do this stuff, who are paid to do this stuff."
For example. the alleged accounts managed to remain unnoticed because they didn't only post negative content about Harry and Megan, as they also say good things about them, as well as speak about other members of the royal family.
Bouzy said that their hateful tweets are mixed in with tweets that do not violate Twitter’s terms of service, making these accounts harder for Bot Sentinel to automatically detect.
“What these accounts are doing — they’re really flying under the wire,” Bouzy said. “They’re right at the edge. They’re doing things our technology isn’t going to catch.”
"These primary and secondary accounts are pushing [hate and disinformation] out, and then it’s being taken over by organic hate," Bouzy explained. "You have the ringleaders, then the secondary accounts, and then an outside network that also amplifies and pushes a certain narrative."
"This is a game they play with Twitter, and they know exactly what they’re doing," Bouzy said.
These people are operating “in a more clever way than we normally see.”
Twitter’s terms of service forbid users from behavior and engagement “that harasses or intimidates, or is otherwise intended to shame or degrade others” and prohibit social coordination between accounts that can result in harm to others.
Responding to Bot Sentinel's finding and BuzzFeed News' inquiry, a Twitter spokesperson said that Twitter is "actively investigating the information and accounts referenced in this report — we will take action on accounts that violate the Twitter Rules."
The British royal families are not allowed to own their own personal social media accounts.
And apparently, Harry and Meghan who stepped back from their duties as royals, also do not have a social media presence on their own. And neither does Archewell, their charitable foundation and production company.
Back in October 2020, Meghan said that she hadn’t been on social media in a long time “for [her] own self-preservation.”
Later in January 2021, Harry said that he and Meghan “will revisit social media when it feels right for us — perhaps when we see more meaningful commitments to change or reform.”
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