Meghan Markle and Single Use Hate Accounts

Podcast royalty Bridget Todd shines some light on the internet's apparent overwhelming hatred of Meghan Markle, where it is coming from and the systems in place that allow people to profit from it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is a and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephane.
Never told you production of IHEART radio, and today we
are thrilled, rejoicing. I'm so glad to be joined by
the much missed and very busy brigid todd. Welcome. Oh,

(00:30):
I'm so excited to be back. It's been too long.
It has been too long. You have been very busy.
Can you give us a snapshot? What's been going on? Goodness,
let us live vicariously through you. Yeah, it's been a
it's been a weird summer. I spent a month in Portugal,
which was Super Fun. I was there during a historic
heat wave and I was staying in a place that

(00:50):
did not have air conditioning, so that was interesting. M Yeah,
it's funny. That will probably mean, this sounds so depressing,
that'll probably be the like coolest summer that that any
of us will have, considering how I oh, it's a
hundred and twenty degrees. Cool, cool, cool, cool, COO, COO cool. Yeah, yeah,

(01:12):
I did some family travel. I got to go to
Barbados with my brother and my sister in law and
my sweet the sweetest little baby, my niece, who was
adorable where I learned that she knows how to swim underwater,
put her face underwater and she loves it. I love it.

(01:33):
I love that's impressive. Yeah, she's an highland baby. I
also learned, I won't say mistakenly, but like unexpectedly, that
in Barbados they drive on the different side of the road,
and I didn't learn that until I got into a
rental car and I was like, well, the steering wheels
in the wrong places. She was like what do you mean? Well,
found that before you got on the road. It sounds

(01:53):
like that good. So unexpectedly. So that could have been
a whole level of the after yeah. So I for
anyone listening that's doing any like travel, definitely research what's
side of the road they drive on the country that
you intend to drive in for a week. That's brave.
I don't I don't know if I would drive in
a different country. It makes me nervous. Oh, I completely

(02:15):
did it. My partner did. I would have. He said that.
I was like, Oh, do you think I could handle
driving here, and he was like you would immediately start crying.
Immediately start crying, which is accurate. So I didn't drive,
but props to him. For being able to navigate that situation.
It's funny because now it's like I literally have to
go out as if my car is a pet and

(02:38):
started once a week because I drive so rarely. But
I learned to drive in Australia and I've driven in
several different countries. I've come so far. I went from
like Oh, yeah, I'll drive a stick shift. Yeah, so
now like you can't get me in that car, Oh
my God. Well, they in Australia not only did they
drive on the other side of the road, but they
also are notorious for like being quite intense drivers. Like

(03:00):
what was that like? It was scary. It was a
stick shift and it was on the other side and
I was like driving at three and one night and
I was trying to turn and I saw I didn't
have a license. Everybody, so please don't come at me,
but I could have been deported. So I was like
trying to make a smooth turn away from the police

(03:20):
and its stalled in the middle of the intersex in
front of the police, of course, of course. So I
drove around and I went through a drive through and
they were their lights turned on, but they couldn't find
me because my clever drive through rules. They're not gonna
this is like Um fast in the fear like to fast.

(03:42):
Any addition, yeah, I'm starting to understand why you may
be banned from a couple of countries now. Yeah, and
it's my poor driving skills. I never was in any accident,
but should I have been on the road? Probably not. Probably. Yeah. Also,

(04:07):
I love there's a cat in the mix. Listeners, you
might hear a cat. You might hear a cat in
the mix. Her name is Monika. She's a million years old.
There's a mouse in our apartment, I'm sad to say.
So we're we're all on a high alert. You might
hear some some some meals. If the mouse comes out,
that would be you know, like, what is it? What

(04:28):
is that called? Is there a word for podcasting? Must
Hear podcasting. Yeah, that's what we're trying to capture. Here
we go with this. I wish you all could see
because like she is all day, she has been perched
where she last saw this mouse, like you would think
that she is like a soldier, like like on patrol

(04:49):
trying to scope about this mouse. She's been called a duty.
He knows. Yes, I love it. I love it. Get it, Monica,
we all believe in you. And then, before this, I
wanted to bring this up because I think it kind
of vaguely relates to what we're talking about. We were
talking about I wonder if younger listeners know about this,

(05:09):
but back in the early days of the Internet, we
would get these like letters, these chain email letters, that
would be like, if you don't send this to ten
other people, Bloody Mary's coming for you, and I would
be like, oh no, not bloody Mary. That is so

(05:34):
specific because, like I said, I've never really got those types.
But that the fact that bloody Mary why people are
using old folk tales and doing it in like more,
I guess, relevant technologies. Is that what this say is
in instead of saying the name, which you've already said
it three times, or your car stay, you've done she's

(05:54):
not looking at a mirror. That was how I shouldn't
see ourselves so level. And then did she bring us
with her? Did she with her? Did she say with
US present? I'm started becoming a little worried, but I'm
just saying yeah, just like traveling of UH, new technologies,

(06:16):
I guess, updated ideas, instead of being from the mirror
to the Internet to zoom calls or ask for US
skype calls. Is this a thing? I think it's a thing.
It's it's so interesting, like how these fables and folk
tales have been around since I've been a kid, how
they've been updated for the Internet age, where it's like, Oh,

(06:37):
maybe you'll like I can I can confirm that, the
same way that we used to get those chain emails,
send this to ten friends, or bloody marry will kill you.
That's one for me. I'm not going to say I can.
Similar things are still floating around, especially on WHATSAPP. I
have seen and gotten messages that are like Oh, send
this to ten friends and you'll have good luck, or

(06:59):
you know it'll be some some corny joke and that
it will end with send this to ten people. So
I can't confirm that those things that we grew up
with are still yeah, and WHATSAPP is a is a
big vector of that kind of like Shane email style messaging. Yeah,
I think I'm not cool enough to receive any of

(07:19):
these threats. I'm good. I did, however, see it actually
mailed to whomever, like when I was at a rental
place where they melt. It was a church mailing this
woman that she needed to send back, I guess witnessing
letters to people or she would not be blessed, and

(07:40):
I was like wow, wow, this church is really going
after people, but they did it through snail mill and
I was like and they're just throwing it all the
way back, if I have to say almost kind of
sounds like low key biblical extortion, like you want this blessing,
send this back if you know what's good for you.
I was like, I don't how this is working for people.

(08:01):
Why are they sending this out, like physically sending this out?
But that's a whole different story. Yeah, I think it
goes back to we've talked about this before, like maybe
you don't believe something, but you're like just nervous enough
to be like, alright, I don't want to mess with it.
That's actually a very common I mean not to get
all like Dorky, but that's actually a very common thing

(08:21):
that we see in disinformation circles, or misinformation circles more specifically,
where people come across some information they don't know if
it's true or not, but they're like let me share
this just to be safe, like I don't really know,
but I want I want to share this my mom,
God lover. She's she's big into this, like she's the
mom who when you get those messages where it's like, Oh,

(08:42):
if somebody puts a piece of paper, a flyer on
your windshield, don't get out of the car, it's gang members,
like she, I think that she's it's I definitely see
it as like an act or a gesture of love
and protection. But I'm like, mom, if some if a
gang member, wants to kidnap me, they're not going to
put a piece of paper on my windshield. I'll just
do it like think about it. Yes. So, true, this

(09:19):
is kind of a convoluted segue, but I wanted to
bring it up because it does bring me joy to
remember me and my old neo's angel email, um, receiving
these things. But also I do think it kind of
tangentially relates to what we're talking about today and that
there seems to be like these messages coming from. We're

(09:40):
not sure where. Um. So I'm very eager to learn
more about this podcaster, a podcaster. That was a masterful transition.
Thank you. Thank you, but yes, I'm very eager to
learn more about this. Can you tell us what we're
going to be discussing today? Yes, so, as you just said, Annie,

(10:01):
that it is sort of related about this idea of
who is able to really control conversations on the Internet
about one specific subject, and so today that topic is
going to be Megan Markele Um, as you all I'm
sure by now I'll probably know, the queen died last week.
To do you, I'm curious, do you two have any

(10:22):
like strong connection to the Royal Family, the monarchy? Like,
is this something that you followed or you, like could
not care less? Have not followed it. I don't know
anything about it. I personally could not care less. I
it's it's been. It's impossible to escape, I will say
right now. Um, but I don't have any real feeling
about it. I have some friends who do. I did

(10:46):
go through a period where I was really into like
entertainment from the UK and specifically, like I was in
love with the idea of moving to London. But I've
never been into the royal family. That's never made sense
to me personally, but I have friends who are, so
I guess I get it through there. So I'm old

(11:07):
enough to remember, uh, like vividly remember instead of just
being like kind of like, yeah, I was a kid.
I remember this the death of Diana, Princess Diana, and also, uh,
the love for William, Prince William, who is, I think,
a couple of years younger than me. So of course,
like that era of trying to figure out watching these
young princes grow up and following their stories. So not

(11:31):
necessarily that I was caught up in the royal lifestyle
or a family, but I do remember that offset of seeing, uh,
the huge controversies amongst the family at that point in time.
Of course, as recently as everything has happened in the
past ten years, with Megan Markle, even Prince William getting

(11:53):
married and all the different things, I have an understanding
of what's going on, kind of like you, as well
as the fact that I have understood my group of
people that I follow have very strong opinions of colonialism
and I'm like yeah, okay, distracts. So that's kind of
where I stand in this mix totally. So I'm somewhere

(12:14):
in the middle. I have to say right up front
I am not a careful follower of the royal family.
I kind of bounce between like ambivalent to like, Oh,
I know about this. So I know that there are
people who are obsessively following royal family and monarchy culture
and if I say anything that's incorrect that it's because
I am not a careful follower of the royal family.

(12:36):
But kind of like you, like, I have a lot
of friends who are really into it. Um, older I
do have a theory that older MOMS, specifically, like older
black MOMS, have a real affinity for Diana. So growing
up my mom loves Diana, cried when Diana died. Still
has people magazines from from that time with like, you know,

(12:57):
what was it? The People's Princess and all that like like.
So definitely got a little bit of Secondhand Royal Family
engagement from that, but I've never really been somebody who
followed it carefully. Obviously, when Megan Markele came on the scene,
I loved that. I was definitely like, oh, black princess.
I know she's not a princess, but that was what
we said that when when she came on the scene. Um,

(13:18):
but yeah, and I think one of the reasons I'm
so fascinated by even as someone who doesn't really know
about the monarchy. Why I'm so fascinated about this issue
is that Megan Markle on the way that people talk
about her, I think, gives us a very interesting lens
into how women, particularly black women and women of color,
how our online experience is shaped by other people. And

(13:43):
Megan Markle is not even on social media anymore, neither
is Prince Harry, and yet she is a constant focal
point on social media. And I think that we really
saw that with the death of the Queen. And even
though the Queen was born back in nineteen twenty six
and there was no such thing as social media back then,
when she by the time she died last week, social
media played a huge, overwhelming role in the way that

(14:05):
the royal family considered her death. You know, the news
itself was first announced to the public on the royal
family twitter before any place else. And you know, a
lot of the immediate next steps and actions that the
royal family took were circulated around social media. So like
halting government social media accounts and saying, like, Oh, official
government accounts are only going to tweet, you know, essential information,

(14:27):
no non essential posts, and like changing the royal family
website to be like a like a morning, you know
in memorium kind of thing. And in addition to the
way that social media has shaped the way the royals,
you know, present to the public, we have seen that
it also presents this place for Megan Markle to be
faced with pretty intense criticisms, but also things like outright lies,

(14:49):
conspiracy theories, racist sexist smears and stereotypes about who she is.
And it really is not the first time, like, we
have seen this kind of stuff going on with Megan
Marko before, the Queen's staff, obviously, and it's so interesting
to me that this, this event, the Queen's death, was
used not just as a way to like memorialize her

(15:11):
or like critique her rain or anything like that. It
was also used as a way to further flam Megan
markle on social media. Yes, yes, and as someone who,
as I said, like I'm not I don't follow this
a lot, I don't get on twitter a lot even,
I was aware that this was happening, like I saw

(15:32):
it trending on my brief like what's going on on twitter,
and I had enough knowledge to be like, I bet
this is coming from a really terrible racist place. When
I saw like Meg and Marco go home trending. So yeah,
can you explain what all of that was? What was

(15:52):
the social media response? Yeah, I mean it's almost exactly
like you said, and I want to interviewed somebody who
writes about fandoms and and culture and she described it interestingly.
She described it as an anti fandom, which I had
never heard before, and so it's just like what you
think of a fandom, but in the opposite direction. So
like people who their whole thing is I love to

(16:13):
hate this one person. I love to create content about
how much I don't like them. That's my thing. And
so that kind of messaging was in full effect after
the queen died. As you said, the Hashtag Megan markle
go home sort of trending on twitter and basically what
I found so interesting about that is that first people
were picking up picking on her because she did not

(16:34):
go to England with Harry, her husband, after the queen died.
And I'm again I'm the expert here, but it sounds
like she just was not invited and so not going
was there anything bad? And then when she actually did go,
everybody was like, oh, go home, go home. So it's
interesting how it kind of doesn't matter what she does.

(16:55):
If she doesn't go, that's bad, if she does go,
that's also bad, and I think it really illustrates how, yeah,
it's like this impossible tightrope where it doesn't it's it's
clearly not really about her actions and what she actually
does or says. It's just about her it's about her existence,
her presence. That is threatening, that is not okay with
the people that hate her and ultimately it's like an

(17:18):
impossible situation to walk Um. There was just like very
fascinating instance where she was videoed and somebody in a
crowd handed her some flowers and an aid seems to
walk up to her and it's like, Oh, I'll take
those for you, and she says to she she mouths
something to him that's like seems to be Oh my God,
I don't worry about it, thank you, and you would

(17:39):
the way that people talked about this on the Internet,
you would think that she punched this aid and it's
like actually, she's just like calmly standing there, saying a sentence,
smiling and then like clearly saying thank you, and it's
like a thirty second interaction. People were dissecting it like
the JFK is a prouder film like she like, people
became like, overnight, body language experts and lip readers and

(18:02):
it was wild. Yeah, yeah, I want to return to
that idea of anti fandom for sure, because I think
as someone who is like a fan of a lot
of stuff, I've seen this before and it just becomes
like this where people feel justified in hating someone. And

(18:24):
here's the proof, and I am a body language expert
and I can tell you why. Um, but all it
is is like they just want to hate that person
who usually they feel is encroaching on their territory. And like,
as someone who is interested in a lot of like
star wars stuff, nerdy stuff, bandom stuff, I'm sure you've

(18:47):
seen this a lot. Yes, Oh, I cannot wait to
talk about it once we get more in depth about
what might be going on here, because, yeah, it's just
like it becomes ums. I think I've said to Samantha before,
it's like this anti finding up thing is ringing. So
truth with me, because I'm like, well, you're not a
fan anymore. You're just all about the hate of this.

(19:10):
You just are unhappy. So I don't know why you're here.
It's to make everyone else feel unhappy and to like
assert your what you think is your power and dominance
in the space. But you're not a fan, if you
hate this much of it, just go, just go along,

(19:32):
it's gonna be okay. Oh yeah, and I mean like
the levels people will go, the things they'll do to scare,
usually women, marginalize people off the Internet is wild to me, Um,

(19:53):
and unfortunately very often successful. But like they will come
up with all of these things. And you you brought
this example of like conspiracy theory right where they were
like this, something is wrong here. Yeah, so, like I
mean the amount of wild conspiracy theory like people. It's
clearly a lot of like projection, where people already have

(20:17):
a negative association with someone and then any little thing
will be used as proof to stack there, to stack that.
That thinking right. And so one of the big conspiracies
that came out of the Queen's funeral was that Megan
attended the funeral wearing a hidden recording device under her dress.
And the reason why people thought this is because she

(20:38):
was photographed and in one of the pictures there's like
a wrinkle or a bump on her thigh and people
were like how like the goal she's gonna be. What
is she recording this for her podcast or for some
netflix special? So shameless, and it's like, Yo, I have
worn those kinds of recording devices in my clothing. They
are so bulky. Also, don't you if that was her plan,

(21:00):
don't you think she would have worn an outfit that
was more conducive, like she wouldn't have worn a dress
that it's like, clings to that part of her body.
She might have worn something with pockets, like you know
she might have. Don't don't you think that if that's
what she was doing, she would have done it better?
And isn't it more possible that, like humans who wear
clothing and stand up wearing that clothing, sometimes experienced wrinkles?

(21:21):
Like isn't much more, more of a better explanation from
what's going on? I think you're being too logical, bridget sensible.
This whole conversation is so odd to me because Megan
Markele just being being present marrying a man has caused
this huge controversy and of course that a lot of

(21:42):
conversations and comparisons to Princess Diana and Megan Markle. Of course,
those same people who probably were degrading and or criticizing
Princess Diana, would now call her an angel and then
saying that Megan Markle is the one that's uh, you know,
disrespecting the name of Princess Diana, and every was like wait, what,
you're the ones who are number one in criticisms. But also,

(22:05):
just like the fact that Mega Markel has nothing, honestly,
to gain in this entirety of this conversation, of these controversies,
to record any of these things, uh, to try, as
they say, that she's trying to make money off these things.
She's not. She's literally doing a podcast about her own life,
bringing in guests to talk about marginalized issues. That has
nothing to do with the throne in general, as well

(22:28):
as the fact Prince Harry's not that close, none of
his family is not close to the lineage to become
king or queen or whatever whatnot. We have already seen
the graphs that happened. So like my mind just this
reeling of like why, why take this effort to bring
this conspiracy other than hey, she's uh, she is not white,

(22:49):
so therefore we hate her. Yeah, and you you've touched
on something. This is a little bit of a tangent
that you touched on something that I think about all
the time is how, you know, I was young when
before Princess Diana died, but even I know, as like
a child living in the United States, even I knew
the way the press talked about her, even as a kid,
and so the press really tore her down and then

(23:12):
when she died, she's an angel we've always loved. It
was like, and I see that so often and I
do think it's like as bad as the media and
the United States is, I do feel like in the
UK and in England it's like work can be worse,
like a little bit like Um more vicious, and I
think about like amy winehouse is the figure, because I

(23:34):
was a huge amy winehouse fan. Amy winehouse is the
figure that I think about a lot, where the press,
in the media loved to villainize her and really make
fun of her in these like cruel ways and ways
that I hope that when people are struggling with substance
issues now, I hope that we've gotten to a place where,
like we don't cruelly mock them for it. But then

(23:55):
when she died, the way that that that same press
rushed to lie and it's her rushed to act as
if they had always loved her, and it's just it's
hard to see and you know, it's kind of breaks
my heart. But there's this video clip of Harry talking
about this and he's like basically feels very emphatically that
the press, it's responsible for the death of his mother.

(24:16):
And then when when there was a time when Megan
was open about experiencing, uh, you know, feelings of self harm,
and he talked about how he felt like he was
watching the press do the same thing to his new wife,
that they that he had to watch them due to
his mom and I something about that clip really sticks

(24:37):
with me. Of like, I don't know, I don't think
I'll ever be able to understand what that must feel
like to have watched that as a child and be
so powerless and then watch it again and be like no,
I'm not letting this happen again, and compounding that with
the fact that this is an racist attack on a
woman for just being in love with a man, point

(24:58):
blank Um. But you know, I found it interesting because
for me, I actually didn't know much about this Hashtag.
I I as much as I'm on twitter and saying things. Again,
like I said, my friends have very strong feelings of
the Queen and her responsibility and colonialism in itself. So
I had a whole different take on this conversation. So

(25:19):
I'm kind of surprised to know that this is happening
and I'm really wondering where did they all come from?
So this is a great question. So I have to
say I'm am probably in a similar digital pocket that
you are, because my timeline when the queen died was
like very much black twitter and like Irish twitter. I
would like to make in twitter all coming together. I

(25:43):
know that people have how can I put this? I
came so when the Queen died, I don't think I
realized that I knew people that had a lot had.
I was surprised by how much reverence my friends in
the United States had for her. So I was okay,
she's definitely like a I have friends to think of
her as like a like a feminist figure. I was

(26:04):
like okay, like I was a little again. This is
not to like I don't want to I don't want
to say you like I really I realized. I was like, Oh,
people have complex feelings about her and it kind of
almost became like a raw shark test of where people
were at, and I was just very surprised to see
that it had not occurred to me that that was
going to be the way that it was, I'll put
it that way. But yeah, like I said, so that's

(26:28):
pucket eyeman. So I'm out of the loop on this one.
I did see the real housewives person go out on
a tangent on Tiktog and that was very obvious. Like
she's jealous of the podcast numbers. UH, fellow, I heart podcaster. Yeah,
so she's not gonna want to come onto any of them,

(26:50):
I don't feel like anytime soon. I mean love real
housewives of New York. She definitely has an issue, like
a clear like I saw that video. In that video
she's like, Oh, Megan Markel is a bad businesswoman. I
was like what do you what do you even know
about it? Like I just remember one like yeah, first
of all, she her podcast archetypes, toppled Joe Rogan's podcast

(27:14):
for the number one spot, which is not even that.
That is a that has not happened years or years.
So I don't know, it's interesting to me. I think
that Megan Markle, and we should talk about it, because
I do think Megan markle evokes a reaction in a
certain type of person. Just her presence, just her being around,

(27:35):
is threatening and like deeply, I think it can like
deeply challenge a lot of people's preconceived notions. Right. So
I think that, like, I also think that Megan Markele
at this point carries herself in a kind of way that, frankly,
I think a lot of like white people, might have
a problem with. Not Surprising, yeah, but the thing is, like,

(27:58):
so that's the only thing I have seen. So I'm
trying to figure out where all these conversations are coming
from and is it actually reflective of the rest of society,
the rest of the peoples and twitters? Well, so that
is a very, very interesting question. UH, Christopher boose, who
is a CEO of a company called Bot Sentinel, which
is an organization that analyzes twitter data to determine, you know,

(28:19):
where conversations are coming from, who is generating them, as
it's real people with its spots. Um, he did an
entire analysis of Megan markel in October one and basically
you would be surprised that a lot of the hate
thrown at Megan Markel, is being driven by a lot
fewer people on social media than you might suspect. So

(28:52):
this I'm excited to talk about because I remember forever ago, bridget,
when you and I did that episode on Star Wars Feminism.
There was a similar thing about star wars, about the
hate the actors received. Oh my God, that's right. Yes,
and I was shocked and I I've I always try
to make the point, believe me, I know there are terrible, racist,

(29:15):
sexist fans, believe me, I know that. But the data
that came out was like it's way less posting about it.
I'M NOT gonna say it's way way well less, it's
way less actually posting about it. And still the perception
I got was there was this huge sex, sex sect

(29:37):
on twitter that was like tearing down these actors and
was causing rotten tomatoes to like review bomb. And the
report we talked about was like it's actually a lot
of bots, and still it has this huge impact. That
changed rotten tomatoes and their policy and it changes how
people perceive like Disney made creative decisions because the cowards

(30:05):
based on this. Like I'm just so glad you brought
that up. That's such a good point and I think
it really goes to show that like a a pretty
small minority of very motivated, very vocal, coordinated, I guess,
in a nice way to put it, passionate people can

(30:27):
really change discourse, they can really change like, they can
really make an impact, and so I would also I
would argue then, that, like there's a problem with our
social media platforms and our digital platforms. It's a small handful,
a relatively small handful, of dedicated trolls and people to
people like haters, can really impact and change discourse. Like,

(30:50):
I would argue that that means that something is broken, something,
it's flawed. And I also think that, you know, when
you have a small handful of people Dick tating the
conversation and making make creating the impression that everybody hates
this new person on star wars or everybody hates Megan Markle,
it's so much easier for somebody who, it's just a

(31:11):
casual viewer of this to get the idea that, like, oh, well,
everybody hates so and so, so like I'm not going
to chime in with, like, I like so and so,
or that I'm ambivalent about so and so, if I'm
going to chime in, it kind of poisons the well
and it makes it so that we can't actually have
honest conversations rooted in what people actually feel, because it's
just like creates an ecosystem where the hate is, it's

(31:34):
what's dictating the conversation. And so yeah, I would argue
that that means that our ecosystems are not healthy and not,
you know, functioning properly if hate is able to dictate
the conversation, even if it's a small minority of people
who feel that way. Absolutely absolutely, because I was under
the impression, I was totally under the impression like Oh oh,
this must be a much bigger group of people than

(31:54):
I thought. Even if I was like they're wrong and
they're full of hate, I still thought it was way bigger.
And then numbers you brought about Megan markle kind of
shocked me with like how much smaller they were based
on what I have seen as a casual viewer of this. Absolutely.
So let's dig into some of those numbers. So from

(32:15):
this Bot Sentinel report, they found that only eighty three
accounts on twitter generate seventy of Megan markle hate content
on twitter. They estimate that these eight three accounts have
a potential combined reach of seventeen million users. So they
broke it down. They found that fifty five what we

(32:35):
call single purpose anti Megan markle hate accounts, and so
a single purpose hate account is that account that like
it only exists to hate on one person like that,
like they're not like primarily like that's what they're doing.
So fifty five of those accounts were these like primary
hate accounts and then another twenty eight secondary accounts that
like mainly amplified them. And so those twenty eight accounts,

(32:58):
they might post about like the royals more generally, but
that their real function is to boost and amplify when
those that when those other primary accounts put out anti
meg and Markle hate, and so that that's really it.
Like they are generating a lot of the hate online.
It is not organic conversation and it's certainly not a

(33:21):
reflection of how just everybody feels on social media because
these these accounts have such a big reach and such
a big ability to control the conversation about Megan Markle. Yeah, yeah,
and that's something that you've you've come on and you've
talked about a lot on here. Is this the responsibility
of social media platforms, but also that kind of manipulation

(33:42):
towards these hateful accounts when it comes to the algorithm
and like what people see and what gets like more traction. Right. Yeah, exactly,
and so I I have a little bit of a
different opinion than a lot of my colleagues in the
platform acountability, in disinformation space. A lot of people would

(34:02):
say single use hate accounts should be banned from the Internet.
Like if you are someone who is running an account
and the only that account only exists to hate on
one specific person, it should be banned. I can understand
that view, but I think that the most important thing
is that platforms should not be amplifying it. They shouldn't
be recommending those accounts to people. When you when you

(34:24):
search Megan markel information, those accounts shall not be the
ones that are prioritized and that that users see first.
What users see first should be like thoughtful, honest information
from sites that are that do not exist only to
spread hated at this one person. And so it is
interesting that, like on a platform like twitter, these eight
three accounts that are driving most of the conversation around,

(34:46):
the negative conversation around Megan Markel. They kind of blatantly
violate twitter's rules. Like one of twitter's rules is that
accounts cannot coordinate to dogpile on people, to harass them
or to like spread negativity around them. These accounts do
just that, right, and they do so in like a
pretty sophisticated coordination with each other. And Yeah, I think

(35:10):
it's one of those things where platforms really need to
understand what's at stake when this is allowed, when like
a small handful of accounts are able to bypass the
rules that you have set for your platform in order
to artificially control the discourse about one subject, that's not great. No, no,

(35:31):
it's not, and it's kind of frightening, to be honest.
And you had to quote bose, talked about this, like
making the clarification that, like we can't just blame boughts.
So I find this super interesting because, you know, we often,
when it comes to online discourse, talk about like well,

(35:51):
is it boughts, is it people? And I feel like
the over focused like talking about both is serious and
we should be doing that. But when we focus on
that and don't also bring into the conversation that sometimes
it is real people. I feel like the conversation can
be not as useful because it obscared the fact that, like, well,
it isn't all bought. Some of it is like real people.

(36:13):
And so in an interview with Buzzfeed boose, I said
this campaign comes from people who know how to manipulate
the algorithms, manipulate twitter, stay under the wire to avoid
detection and suspension. This level of complexity comes from people
who know how to do this stuff and who are
paid to do this stuff. And so yeah, I think especially,
what do you think about the fact that people can

(36:34):
profit from this? I think it really should be who
these platforms to make a change. I mean that's the
big conversation, is that people are making money and can
make a living off of this. And why is this
something that is profitable? So it's not just they're making money,
but they're profiting, and literally off of hate, because over
here I have at least four times the amount of

(36:56):
the bots following me and I can only get three
people to look at my time. To me, how come
on rageous. But I find that interesting that we have
had this continuous talk and we have these prime examples
of what is happening on twitter specifically. Like we talked

(37:18):
recently about one of the Canadian Um women who is
currently working with bumble and making sure that there's safety
for the women who are and those who are on
their APP and that one of her big things where
that she was bringing out the reports showing how twitter
does not help or defend or make twitter safe for
women and marginalized people. And, uh, if so, just recently

(37:41):
came out with a big research data showing that women
are still being heavily targeted and are not being helped
at all by platforms in general and that the fact
of the matter is people are once again profiting. Have
become have become aware of Oh so we can make
money by essentially on women and women of color and

(38:03):
doing so in a way that not only can we
get away with it, not only can we make money,
but it's making a difference, uh, in people's reaction to this. Yeah,
I mean like and so you're exactly right. Like this,
the research is it completely jives with what you're saying.
You are exactly exactly right, and as bad as that
is right. So, like platforms are like. I would argue

(38:26):
that this, this kind of negative engagement and harassment and
abuse of women of Color on these platforms. I would
argue that is built into these business models like twitter,
when when somebody tweets something that is like crapping on
Megan Markele and it's getting lots of engagement, it is
in twitter's best financial interest to boost that and amplify

(38:48):
that because it's like, Oh, this is clicking, people are
people are paying attention to this. That's a problem and
I also think that, you know, we're talking about Megan Markle,
who is a public figure, but she's not a political
figure necessarily. We're talking about star wars and like fandom.
Think about how that, like, as bad as that is,
apply that to democracy, apply that to women and women

(39:09):
of color who are trying to run for office, apply
that to women and women of color and other marginalized
people who are trying to engage in our democracy and
be part of civic and public life right and so
the implications really become clear. If it's this bad for
conversations that are, you know, about pop culture and like celebrities,

(39:30):
imagine how how big the stakes are when that same
dynamic is applied to people who are just trying to
run for office or just trying to make their voices
heard and participate fully in our democracy. Right. And the
one report we were talking about, they were specifically focusing
on journalists and talking about this is a part of
their job description, and I think about that all the time.
I'm like, Oh my God, because technically is a part
of our job description and I hate it. I hate

(39:52):
it so much because I don't want to become a
focal point at any point. Nothing that we are, thank God,
because we go under the radar as well, like I
said to people like my tweets, it's fine, um, but
we go under the radar enough that, you know, we
don't have to deal with that before someone who has
is being told if you don't get your views up,
you're not going to get paid or you're not going
to stay in this job. I couldn't imagine. So I

(40:14):
actually literally just left a summit all about this as
it pertains to journalism, and I when I was a kid,
I wanted to be a journalist, right, like I was
obsessed with April O'Neil from teenage, mutant into turtles. I
I wanted to be a journalist like that was like
the career that I wanted to go into and today

(40:34):
the fact that young women like who are younger, go
into journalism like like willingly. It surprises me because I
think a lot of women have women are smart enough
to realize if I'm going if the cost of doing
this job is dealing with online abuse, online harassment, online violence,

(40:56):
and my male counterparts are not dealing with it the
same way that I am. So it's just like it's
just like an extra woman tax or, you know, marginalization
tax in the workplace, and institutions largely do not know
how to support women who are going through this and
dealing with this, and so it's like just their problem.
There's an assumption that the person who is the focal

(41:18):
point of harassment and abuse that they've done something to
warrant it, and that completely is not how it works.
Like oftentimes the thing that they're doing is like existing
as a woman Um. And so think about what we
are asking women to deal with. It's just completely unfair
and we're asking them to deal with it and not
even talk about the issue right and so it's just

(41:41):
completely it's that's up a completely unfair dynamic. When I
think about how many people have either just given up
on this as a career they're just like, I'm not
going to get on social media. It's not worth it.
It has the ability to suppress women from being involved
in public and civic life. And the worst part is
is like we were just now talking about it. We're
so late in bringing it up right, and that's in fact.

(42:03):
These reports are specific to twitter, but it's been happening.
It's been happening on bigger platforms and other social media's right. Oh,
absolutely it is. I don't want to give the impression
that it is just twitter, because that is not the case.
Um Soot Sentinel also analyzed youtube accounts and they found that,
because of Youtube Monetization, trashing Megan Markel is actually big,
lucrative business. They found that twenty five youtube channels earned

(42:26):
around three point five million from ad revenue and that
three of the most successful anti Megan markel accounts generated
almost five hundred thousand dollars during their existence. And these
videos are like it's not like they're filming. You know,
I know, but yess it's not. Like. They're low quality

(42:49):
videos that basically just traffic in conspiracy theories and outright
lies and like racist stereotypes and tropes, right, and so
like some of the aims that they'll make is like, oh,
Megan Markel, she baked her pregnancy, she used to serogate
like it's it's things that are completely baseless lies, and
I think that if you are able to make half

(43:11):
a million dollars almost trafficking in baseless lies and conjecture
and racism and sexism, you shouldn't be able to. If
you're able to make that kind of money from that,
something is wrong, like something is really broken. Yeah, yeah,
I mean agreed, because it's like not that this always works,
but there's been attempts to crack down on like medical misinformation. Um,

(43:37):
like you can't make money off of that. It's been
hit or miss, but there have been attempts and it
seems like if there's just something flatly untrue, you should
not be making millions of dollars from it by saying
that it is true. And then just like the the
spreading of that Um and how harmful that is is

(44:00):
on these platforms and we've seen and, like we said,
like the trickle effect of people believing that this is
the discourse. And so therefore women have it hard enough already,
like in the public office, like I just don't like her.
There's something about her, and to have like just this
overwhelming discourse of like no, no one likes her, and

(44:23):
so it just it just seems so toxic and that
people are making money from it is very frustrating and
I definitely agree. That means something is wrong here. Yeah,
and I want to be clear, like I didn't really
have strong feelings about Megan Markele. I like that she's
a black princess, but or was a black princess. And Yeah,
I know she wasn't really princess, but whatever. I but like,

(44:45):
if you don't like Megan Markele, that's fine, you're it's
it's totally within your right to be like, I don't
like her. Rothers to me the wrong way, whatever. We
all have people that we don't like, but that is
very different than you know. I am going to spearhead
a coordinated campaign to make it seem like everybody doesn't

(45:06):
like her, and that campaign is going to be built
on racism, sexism and lies about who she is. And
I say that because when you do that, you're making
us all less safe. It truly does threaten our democracy.
When you're able to tell those kinds of inflammatory lies
and have them take up so much space in the room,

(45:28):
it makes all of us that much less safe, particularly
women and women of Color. It makes it so much
harder for us to thrive at environments where we can
be judged on our character, things that we actually do
and actually say, not made up conspiracy theories about us
putting microphones in our panties. Right, like, we need to
have a discourse where honest, thoughtful, accurate conversation about who

(45:52):
we are as marginalized people dominates and crap like that
does not. Yeah, yeah, I remember very vividly this essay
I read a while back. That was like, you know,
if a woman stands up in the town square and
it is saying something is wrong here, and as thousand
men threatened her with violence and are screaming over her,
who's like freedom of speech is being threatened here, because

(46:16):
it feels like that. Because, like you said, so many
people leave, so many Marchinines, people and women leave because
they're facing this. What they feel? What? What is this? Like?
Shouting hateful vitriol that makes you feel unsafe in this
space and it makes it impossible for us to have
these healthy conversations that are necessary and needed for a democracy. Absolutely,

(46:39):
I would also argue that like that it's by design.
It's meant to come up the works. It's meant to
have people who are interested in actual discussion and dialogue
to check out and be like, no, banks don't want
to risk risk it by putting my thoughts out there,
and it's meant to make sure that we can't find unity,
that we can't come together, that we can't make progress
on all the issues that are impacting us and have

(47:00):
of the conversations that we need to have that might
move us forward on those issues. Right well, Virgid, is
there any has there been any changes? Is there any hope?
There is a little bit of hope, right so, earlier
so I mentioned how on Youtube people are able to
make big money basically just running single purpose hate accounts

(47:20):
against Megan Markele. Not Anymore. Earlier this year youtube made
a big change. They do ranked Anti Megan market results
from their search. In a really great buzzfeed piece by
Ellie Hall, which shout out to Elliet Hall. She has
done some fantastic reporting on Megan markel and race and
culture and what it all means. UH, Ellie Hall rights,
but now you'll only find videos from verified accounts and

(47:43):
news outlets in the Youtube search results for Megan Markel
and first recommendations in the sidebar. Even if you explicitly
searched for and started watching videos that accused Megan markle
of being a narcissist or videos claiming that she wore
fake ballet to make herself look pregnant, Youtube's recommendation sidebar
won't initially serve you similar videos. And so, uh, I

(48:04):
do think that that is a step in the right direction. Like,
I gotta give it to Youtube that that was a
good call because, yeah, when you search any topic, but
let's use Megan Markel at an example, it is not,
it should not be, in Youtube's best interest for the
first search results, but I think that they're promoting for
the recommended videos that they're surfacing to you to be

(48:25):
videos from people whose whole thing is hating on that
one thing. Right, it should be honest, accurate content. I
would love to throw and thoughtful in there, but I
think if you can just get accurate, that would be great.
That would be a great start for just just just
do this, because it's gotten so off the roils and

(48:46):
it's just like just just be true. At least if
you're going to say nic and Markle is married to
Prince Harry, just Indo with that. I'll watch that over.

(49:10):
This is the biggest conversation. Like, why is it significant?
When people talk about Megan Markel knew what she was
coming into. Again, it's just one of those places of like,
but she just got married, but that's the end. She
didn't want to be a princess because so many accusations
came at her that they're like, you know what, we're
leaving this royal family stuff. We're done. We're done because
we're getting attacked from every circle, whether it's she's uh,

(49:32):
a gold digger slash, I guess, a royalty digger. Is that?
Is that? That's a name. Is that of something um
or versus to her want to disrupt the family, all
of these things that what just happened was they got
set up. They are famous. She wasn't that famous. She
just she was an actress. She was good at our job.
She could have kept going. She met him, got married

(49:52):
and that's it. She's not trying to be political, she's
not trying to be royalty. She just wants to be
a part of our family. Has Some really good, good
relations up with her mother, bad relationship with bother, just
being that, and because of that she's getting all this
vitriol being compared to the other royalties. Uh, we we
know what this is, we know what this looks like,
and for her, who was not even on social media,

(50:14):
who continues to be attacked, is just one of those
parts of like she doesn't deserve this. There's nothing that
she did that deserves this. There's no conversation where we
think that this is earned and she she put herself
out there. She's not a politician taking a stance on anything.
She's just being like, that's it. Yeah, you something that

(50:38):
you said. I hadn't even really thought about this, but
I think that people's reactions to Megan markle really demonstrate
how women of color especially, are really not allowed to
publicly be multifaceted, complex humans. It's like the fact that like, Oh,
she has a, you know, complicated relationship with her father,

(50:59):
who doesn't like they use these incredibly human things where
it's like, yeah, welcome to being a human in relationships
with other humans. Sometimes that these things happen like they
find these incredibly human things that we all experience and
they they use it or they frame it as like
a negative against her in these ways that I just

(51:19):
think are just completely transparent. It's so obvious what's happening
and the way that they talk about her with this
like I'm wanna say this. They're quite good at talking
about her with this plausible deniability of like, Oh, I
didn't mean I didn't mean that racially. When I called
her Compton Kate, even though she's not from Compton, I
didn't mean anything race like race truly, but I didn't

(51:40):
say anything racially motivated there. I was just saying she's
from California and Compton it's also a city in California.
You know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is again I
feel like we need a new segment, bridget, where you
come on and we do like but I feel like this,

(52:02):
there's so much of this. It is like questioning women's
ambition and it still seems to be in this very
like old system of royalty, like Oh, she's just trying
to marry into the royal family, we can't trust anything
she does and she's trying to ruin this tradition by
being her and like just constantly questioning and calling out

(52:28):
what women's intentions are. And it's funny because I find
myself having I mean, these systems are so ingrained that
I'm not immune to it. Like I when I read
articles about ambitious women, like I have to really check
myself internally and be like, well, are you really just

(52:50):
like adding this like sexist trope on to this woman
that assumes that she must be, you know, misleading this
like simple childlike man who doesn't know any better? And
and oftentimes the answer is yes, and I have to
step back and be like, well, let's unpack why. Your
assumption was that this woman, who is ambitious and powerful,
must be, you know, calling the shots and misleading this

(53:14):
like dull Lord of a man? Isn't that kind of
insulting to both of them? Yeah, it just goes to
show like how ingrained these these systems are and how
insidious they are and the work that each individual needs
to do to unpack them, and myself very much included, right, yeah, me,
all of us. I think we all have these things

(53:34):
that we just didn't realize that we did internalize so much.
And something like this, you know, the royal family, mega
markle can seem kind of frivolous. It's not that it
can kind of feel that way because celebrity culture kind
of insights that a lot. But, as we've been alluding
to a lot throughout this, it does matter right, oh,

(53:57):
it matters hugely. Like I would say that the reactions
of Megan markel really shows how easy it is for
a relatively small amount of people to create an effective
and negative echo chamber that can be fueled by things
like racism and sexism. You know, again, if eighty three
accounts are able to generate the majority of negative chatter
about one person and create the impression inorganically that that

(54:20):
is the overall sentiment of that person, it kind of
means that our digital landscape, in our platforms might not
be so healthy. Yes, yes, and, and I don't think
we went over this, but there were those. The people
who are doing this, who are running these accounts, know
what they're doing. They know how to manipulate the system.
We talked about that, but they have like very specific ways.
So if there's if we are on working in these

(54:42):
systems where the eight three, these eighty three people can
just manipulate these rules and kind of skate being banned.
And these what some people who are maybe casual twitter
users or have users assume, like, oh, twitter has these rules,
they'll kick people off. But that's not working either. No,

(55:02):
it's not working right. And so I would say the
fact that platforms still allow this largely is a big problem, right,
and the fact that it's profitable, that you can make
money from it, and I think it's incentivized. And so again,
like we it's these eighty three people are bad actors,
but also, more institutionally, platforms need to do something to

(55:22):
make sure that relatively small handful of people can't hijack
an entire conversation about a subject. And again, I know
that a lot of people that I respect would say
that the answer is to ban single issue hate accounts
or single person hate accounts, that we should be banning those,
and I again, I I think that there's always going
to be people who, they're staying is hating on other

(55:43):
public figures, and so I don't necessarily think that that
those people should not be able to do that. Like,
I don't love it and like I wouldn't recommend it
and I would never be friends with somebody who would
do that. And I would never do that, but there's
I feel that there's always going to be people who
are hell bent on hating on others and I think
that's just a reality of the world that we live in.
But even so, platforms don't have to make money off

(56:06):
of it, profit off of it, amplify it, normalize it,
you know, like they can take some accountability. And so
I don't know, I think that the real, the real,
for me at least, the real problem here, is what
happens when platforms just allow this and it becomes the norm,
because I really have seen the way that this same
dynamic can be applied to political leaders, women running for office,

(56:29):
women journalists, and I think the implications when you apply
it that way, really become clear. It's it's, it's they're
quite dire. And Yeah, people can make money off of it.
Like the fact that we're looking at Forbes magazine with
tiktok stars talking about how the number one stars making
almost twenty million dollars per you. It's kind of like what, wait, what?

(56:50):
And the realization is literally, Tiktok, the platform, helped elevate
these individuals and have made them a household market and
have made them profitable, have created a new genre of celebrities.
Is that a thing? Right? I mean, the fact is
they have a lot of power, whether we want to

(57:12):
admit it or not, and it it plays into, obviously,
as you were talking about star wars, it plays into movies,
is played into what's being created, it's plays into what's
being pulled. Is played into who ends up being on UH,
who ends up becoming leaders. It absolutely affects everything, and
when it's specifically targeted to silence marginalized individuals, like what

(57:34):
has happened with Megan markel that she got off of
social media. We've seen many teen celebrities, young girls, get
off social media because it's the constant were rating, constant
trolling that it becomes a thing. We've seen individuals being
terrorized for making a comment about someone's favorite musicians. It's
the whole level of like what is happening and the

(57:55):
fact that this has allowed to happen and there's no
one who seemingly controls it, even though it's under a
platform that is a private company. Exactly. I mean, I
couldn't have put it better myself. And when I think
about the ways that, you know, the younger generation, the
generation coming up behind me. They're largely, like you know,
the on online generation, and so they're learning about politics

(58:17):
and the world around them and civic engagement from the Internet.
The ways that they exert that power in those voices
is are are largely online. If our online systems are
so toxic that people don't even want to be part
of them, that is an entire generation of marginalized young
people who, early on, have just checked out, and that
is a huge problem. Yeah, yeah, and on top of that,

(58:39):
I think of kind of the toxic messaging we get
from a very young age um as women, and so
you internalize some of this stuff and then if you
were exposed to these social platforms that are just reinforcing
all the toxic messaging, that's not good. That's that's very,
very bad. Yes, yeah, I guess like I just strongly

(59:05):
feel that we all deserve better. Like we we we
can have better. The reason why things are not better,
I would argue, or because it's lining the pockets of
mostly white, straight SYS men who build these systems and
profit from them and them. We deserve better. I don't
care if they all go bankrupt if it means that
we can have something better. For the rest of us. Yes,

(59:26):
keep the rich. I like it, I love it. Um. Well,
thank you so much as always, bridget. It was a
delight to have you. Every time we have these I'm like, well,
we gotta talk about this, we're gonna talk about this,
we're gonna talk about this. So are there any resources
you want to shout out or where can the listeners

(59:47):
find you both? Well, I definitely recommend checking out bought
Sentinel's work. They put out research briefings that are so fascinating,
and Christopher bouse has done such a good job of
really helping me understand what's happening on the Internet. So
definitely at them out. Um, you can follow me on
twitter at Bridget Murray or on Instagram at Bridget Marian
D C, and check out my podcast. There are no
girls on the Internet. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely do that, listeners,

(01:00:10):
if you have not already, thank you again, a bridget,
for being here. Cannot wait until the next time. Me Too.
Thanks for having me. Yes, absolutely, I always have wonderful,
wonderful pleasure and listeners, if you would like to contact us,
you can or emails. stuffit me. The amout stuff at
I hurt meat dot com. You can find us on twitter,
at MOMS podcast or instagram and stuff I never told you. Thanks,
as always, to our super producer, Christina. Thank you, Christina,

(01:00:33):
and thanks to you for listening. Someone never told you
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