Meghan Markle: Inside the Racist, Sexist Online Hate Campaign Targeting the Royals

Bridget is joined by BuzzFeed's Ellie Hall to discuss the online hate campaign facing Meghan Markle and the harassment Ellie herself has faced for reporting on it.

Refinery 29's: "I Went Undercover In The Sinister World Of Meghan Markle Hate Accounts" 

Ellie’s viral BuzzFeed piece about Royal double standards (all of her reporting is great though!):
"People Are Once Again Calling Out A Royal Double Standard After Harry And Meghan Got Attacked For Holding Hands At The Queen’s Lying-In-State"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to another episode of Internet Hate Machine. As always,
I am joined by my producer, Sophie. Sophie, how are you?
It's three? How are you? I can't believe he made
a girl. It did not seem likely, but alas, we
did it. I'm proud of us. We did it. But Sophie,

(00:21):
I have to ask, what is your connection to the royals? Listen?
Not much except that I really liked Princess Diana when
I was like in the seventh and the eighth grade,
super into Princess Diana. And then now it's like you
have no choice because the Harry and Megan's story is everywhere.

(00:43):
You cannot scroll. There is no peace. It feels like
it's everywhere, especially like the Netflix special Harry's memoir Spare Drafts.
This week, He's speaking to Anderson Cooper in like two
days too for like an hour long interview thing. I'm
like my guys out there, so I'm kind of like you,

(01:04):
Like I am a casual. I have a very casual
interest in the Royals, and that's why I'm really really
excited to be joined by Ellie Hall. Ellie It's a
senior reporter at BuzzFeed and just an overall very cool
human and she knows so much about the Royals from
covering them immensely. Ellie, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. I remember

(01:25):
the first we were just talking about this off Mike.
The first time that I met you in person was
at a Digital Void event here in d C. And
I was a little drunk, but I was also like
mildly star struck. I was like, oh my god, that's
Ellie Hall. I remember heaping like effusive praise on you
and your work, to the point where I was like,
she probably thinks I'm very drunk, but it was very sincere.
I just sounded like it was. It was drunk talk.

(01:46):
It was like very sincere talk. To be fair. I
was a little drunk too, I record, but no, because
like I were mutuals on Twitter. So I was like,
oh my god, it's you. That's great, and um, you know,
I'm really proud of all the rolpoling that I've done,
So it was very nice of you. Just generally, how
did you come to be someone who covered the Royals?

(02:09):
I didn't really start following it a whole bunch until
William Kay got married. I feel like that was the
big sort of thing in two thousand and eleven, that
was a reset of the Royal family, and we're in
a new era. So um, I followed it since then
and when I started at BuzzFeed in and I cannot
believe I have been there ten years now. Congratulations. First
of all, a long time. Yeah, it's a long time.

(02:31):
Thank you. Um. Nobody else care about the Royal family,
so it was sort of like, who's reporting on the
Royal family this girl, And it's just sort of I've
continued reporting on it for all these years since, and
it's gotten When I said, when you know what I started,
I had no idea how to even contact the palace
for comment and stuff like that. And you know, now

(02:52):
I'm like in, I get the press releases and everything,
and I know of the spokespeople, but it took a
while to get to like royal reporter level. I'm sure
some people listening are like, oh, the Royal family, that's
just fluff, Like who cares celebrity gossip whatever, But it
really does tell us a lot about gender, class, race,

(03:12):
all of these things that are so deeply embedded our
in our society. I think that coverage of the royal
family and kind of coverage of the coverage, How is
the media framing them? What does it tell us? Can
really say so much about these deeper, thornier issues that
we all grapple with every day. Oh yeah, and that's
what makes following the royal family particularly now really interesting

(03:36):
because you can tell a whole lot about society. Like there,
so there was this, this just happened. A UK columnist
named Jeremy Clarkson wrote a column about Megan Markle or
she's Megan the Duchessess Megan the Duchess's Essex, and he
was criticizing her because of Harry Megan's recent Netflix show,
and he said some horrible things. He said like he

(03:57):
wanted her to walk naked through a screaming crowd and
have people throwing excrements like the right, that's that guy. Yeah,
that's that's what he said. But at the same time,
like who was your editor, my dude, Like let that
get into the paper. Yeah, And watching people watching people
who defended it saying like oh, it's a Game of

(04:17):
Thrones reference, and then watching other people be like are
we on the same page? Here? Happens as appropriate, So
like watching The reaction to that was really interesting because
you see the different levels of culture and you can
in it aligns by class a lot of the time. So, yeah,
the Royal family can show us so much about almost

(04:40):
any issue, including politics, Like that's going to be a
big one now that Charles is king, because he has
been politically active all of his life, you know, not
in not in like I'm gonna go on vote way
because he can't. But he's advocated for climate change. There
was a scandal, I think it was in the nineties.
There was a scandal where papers that he had written,
they were called the Spider Papers, like he had written

(05:02):
like two politicians and expressed opinions about political things, and
they hit the newspapers. So what is his role going
to be and what's his role with the government gonna be?
Like is it going to be awkward? Is it not? So? Yeah,
I think you're going on and on about this, but
it's classism, racism, xenophobia, all all of these things you

(05:23):
can see and through the lens of the Royal family,
And that is honestly exactly what I want to be
talking about in this episode. Megan Markel and the gendered,
racialized hate harassment and disinformation campaigns that we know surround her.
And again, it's not really about Megan Markle. To me,
it's really about how easy it is for a relatively
small number of people. Um. I would usually call them

(05:46):
bad actors, but somebody left a review on the podcast
saying that this podcast could be a drinking game every
time I used the term bad actors, and that reviewer
was correct. I do say it a lot. It's like
you would be are you would be blackout drunk if
you took a shot every time I say it, But
it's just because it's like the term that we use
this information. But these people are able to completely hijack

(06:12):
the conversation around this specific person. And like, as someone
who is just a casual observer of the royals, like
I don't. I'm not a hyper focused person who was
like obsessed with them. You know, I liked it when
Megan Merkele was introduced, Like I like the idea of like, oh,
black princess, even though you know, Duchess not a princess.
I know, I do think it's a I know, right,

(06:34):
Like it's still technically technically even if she lost Duchess
of Sussex her title would be Princess Henry. Oh ship,
there we go. Yeah, And for those who don't know,
Henry is Prince Harry. That's his actual name. Um, it's confusing. Yeah,
Princess Henry. Yeah, Prince Prince Henry. Princess Henry would be

(06:54):
her name, black princess. There we go. Uh so yeah,
I think it's really it's a great sample of the
way that these the small dedicated number of people is
able to completely dominate and hijack the conversation and traffic
in racism, sexism and have that be like a relatively

(07:14):
lucrative enterprise, right, and then we see this sort of
like take off with different targets. And so I've actually
heard that's referred to as an anti fandom, which I
had never heard before doing the research for this episode.
But I think like exactly what you think of it as, right,
like people who are really really dedicated the same way
that a fandom is, but in the opposite direction, and

(07:35):
anti fandom, they are really really dedicated to hating a
single person. Can I Can I jump in right quick
and saying please, I see that article. It's a Refinery article.
You really, everybody if this makes it into the podcast.
You really should read it. It's one of the best
pieces about the anti Meg and Markle uh just sort
of campaign on the internet out there. It's great piece. Well,
definitely link in the show notes it really it really

(07:57):
kind of opened my eyes to the way that this
is not just people. Like everybody has a celebrity or
someone that they don't like that like rubs them the
wrong way, not everybody dedicates so much of their time,
energy and effort into their hatred of that person, bonding,
like forming these social bonds through that hatred of other people,
coordinating with other people who hate that person. Like there's

(08:17):
a pretty big difference between you know, I don't really
care for such and such and the level of dedicated
commitment that this anti fandom has to hating this one person.
Like that article really makes it clear what we're dealing with,
So will definitely link it in the show notes. Yeah,
and it's not so. The thing that is a little
weird about this is some of these people are only

(08:39):
they're only paying lip service to being Reyal Family fans.
Like there are some people who like I call them
royalist accounts Sussex people who do not like the Royal
Family called him derangers. Like there's some people who really
like the Royal family and will make I would say,
like reasonable criticism of Harry and Megan. But then there
are some of these anti Megan accounts don't care about

(09:00):
the Royal family. They just they just care about trashing Megan.
And yeah, maybe they'll post a picture of the Queen
um a few times, you know, a picture from our funeral,
but their main thing is posting negative stuff about Megan,
which is weird. It's so weird, and I think it
really a points something else out that I'm always saying
on this show, which is that you talked about how
some people maybe are interested in, you know, reasonable criticism

(09:23):
or conversation about the Royals, but that when when you
have these hate campaigns, the people who are interested in thoughtful,
reasonable criticism and conversation are completely drowned out, and you
have these people who like don't even really care about
the Royals dominating the conversation, who are only interested in
traffic again, hate, like that's what they're interested in. So
that I that's that's really really funny you said that, um,

(09:46):
because that that's my line. And for a while there
was a time when I would interact with some of
these accounts because, like, my thing is engaging in good faith.
I believe in good faith journalism. I think that the
world is better when you can go to somebody who
disagrees with you and both of you enter into that
disagreement in good faith, coming from a place of I

(10:08):
believe one thing, you believe the other. Let's let's try
to figure out if there's common ground. Not coming from
a place of I'm never going to change my mind.
I'm sea lioning, i am, but actually I'm you know,
I am never ever ever going to even attempt to
see your point of view. And that's what these people do,
and hilariously that has gotten me a nickname in the

(10:29):
anti Megan community. I am hashtag good faith Ellie. First
of all hot, Second of all hot. Ask someone who
covers this for a living, what is it like the
way that people who are so entrenched and so dug

(10:49):
into like nothing will ever convince me that Megan Markle
is not a narcissist liar this that what is it
like to have them personally come after you? Really it's
reporting the truth and like wanting to amplify good faith
conversations based in honesty, I'm not gonna lie. When it
first started getting pretty pretty bad, like my therapist and

(11:10):
I had to talk about it. But the main thing
here is that it's not about me. I am an
extension of how they feel about certain people. Because like
it's not just uh, you know, you write about Megan
or oh, you write about the Royal family. It's like
people genuinely believe or say they believe it, Like I'm
being paid by Harry and Megan for the work that
I do, and it's like no buzz BuzzFeed, busky news

(11:33):
with only people who who write my paychecks. But at
a certain point, you you do start feeling like you're
going a little bit insane because you're have you I
have people in my inbox who are telling me that
Megan wore a moon bump to fake both of her
pregnancies and she had a surrogate. I have people, uh,
you know, saying that she was associated with Jeffrey Epstein

(11:55):
and like she was on Epstein's island, or that she
was a yacht girl. And these people believe either they don't.
They don't only believe it, they're posting online so that
they can get other people to believe it, and you know,
it feels Trumpian in a way that when all that
started happening, that was a very it was sort of
like looking into a mirror of you know, the politics

(12:16):
side of it instead of the world side of it,
because you can't reason with some of these people. They
are they are convinced that it's true. Yeah, I definitely
see the Q and On influence in in in that
type of rhetoric, in the I'm gonna take something, I'm
gonna run with it and I'm gonna try to force
it on people, and then that and and and like
to something where you say it to somebody who's not

(12:38):
fully involved with the topic and you say to them
and they're like, what are you a moon bob? What
are you talking about? But they believe it. They believe it.
They really believe it. That's the thing. That's the thing
that that I'm like, No, they wholeheartedly believe what they're
saying is true. And the thing that makes it difficult

(13:00):
and is that that poisons all of the discourse when
you have that group of people, It poisons all of
the conversations about the royal family online and this even
includes within you know, Megan's online supporters who call themselves
the Sussex Squad because there's so much horrible nous coming

(13:20):
and an irrational and crazy and conspiracy theory, irrational nous
coming from the anti Megan's side, their need jerk responses
to be defensive to everything, and and you know, not
accept any criticism of Megan. Harry like every you can
criticize everybody, and even like Megan said this in an
in uh the interview she did in South Africa, she said,
you know, as long as the criticism is fair, Harry

(13:42):
and I don't care about it, but it has to
be fair. And when you're at a point where certain
people are defending Megan from allegations that are racist in
our sexist, you can't have discourse because no one, no
one's ever gonna no one will ever meet in the
middle about this because there's just too much nonsense flying

(14:02):
around the internet and there's so much bad faith. You
say bad actors, I say bad faith. I can understand
and have gotten and caught up in it myself. The
the feeling like you need to take a side to
defend somebody who is being unfairly attacked against criticisms that
are nonsense, right Like, I feel it a lot with
Kamala Harris. I'm no big fan of Kamala Harris. I

(14:24):
don't think that she deserves to be like facing racist,
sexist swipes or things like that, and so you feel
like you need to take a side because you see
somebody being so unfairly attacked that you're like, well, obviously
I have to defend them. And that's not good discourse.
That doesn't that doesn't create the conditions for people to
have actual truth based criticisms. And actually, somebody who didn't

(14:44):
like Megan Merkle or didn't like Kamala Harris should actually
want to have a climate where we people can have
substitutive critical conversations about their issues with that person. Right
Like when you have a dynamic where one side is
drumming up false racist, conspiracy theory laden nonsense and another
side is just like defending them, nobody is actually having

(15:05):
the like, actual thoughtful conversation based in reality about the
pros and cons of this person or how they present
or what they do, and say no, and it's also
like you attacked me, so I'll attack back if you.
This is I hate how Twitter sent tells you like
the things that it thinks you're interested in that are trending.
But it's helpful for me because I follow royal stuff.

(15:26):
Like you will see people on SUSI side like amplifying
rumors about William and Kate. There has long been a uh,
I'll say conspiracy theory, um, but who really knows. There's
long been a theory out there that William cheated on Kate,
and that is like there's there's we haven't seen any

(15:49):
real evidence of the of this, but like that is
accepted as truth by the other side. So when you
have these things that our conspiracy theories and that are
accepted as truth, it goes both hats and no one,
Like like we just said, no one can meet in
the middle, yeah and correct me if I'm wrong? Is
it Prince Andrew like a known sexual abuser? Like yeah,

(16:10):
couldn't we all just like join forces and be like,
let's if we're gonna call anybody something that like like
as somebody who has you know, covered that side of
it and like really learned a lot about It's like,
why is that not the conversation every single day? Why
is that not the thing that the that the like
that that is going on. Why do they not why

(16:31):
do they not care? Why is that not the thing?
Why are they focusing on this this this woman from
l A who wears tall uggs, Like why do they
give a fuck? Like that's the thing that blows my mind.
I'm like, you have somebody who was involved with Jeffrey Epstein,
who is a prince. Ellie helped me. So as far

(16:52):
as far as that goes, I think that, you know,
one part of it off the bat that um everyone
would say is just that like he's done, especially since
Charles is came now like he is done. Um he
for some reason, he still had an office in Buckingham
Palace for the past few years. As soon as the
Queen died, Charles shut that ship down. It's you know,

(17:13):
so it's it's very clear, like he's never gonna come
back to public life and he's just going to be
a family member for the rest of his life. And
I feel like that's a closed book now for some
people because like what else are you're gonna do? Like
there's there are no there are no new lawsuits coming forth.
But the problem is the comparisons that start happening because
you look at Harry and you look at Andrew. They

(17:37):
both stepped back to public life for two very different reasons.
I want to be clear that I'm not in this episode.
I'm not trying to make anyone feel any kind of
way about Megan and Harry. Right. People can think whenever
they want to think about them, Totally fine. But there's

(17:57):
a very clear difference in being like, oh, I don't
care for her podcast or whatever, and a engaging in
a sophisticated, coordinated disinformation campaign against her that it really
traffics in the sexist, racist stereotypes and conspiracy theories and
profiting off of it. So I want to get into
a little bit about how we know that this these
campaigns work, which I know we saw a little bit

(18:19):
of on their recent Netflix documentary. Yeah, Bridget, I do
you remember like in I think it was in December
where I text you and I was like I was like, uh, yeah,
I think we have to talk about this, and they're like,
do I have to watch it? And I was like,
I was like, I was, it seems like really boring,
And I was like, there's an entire episode that focuses
on like single use hate accounts and like goes into

(18:43):
the targeted and like that side of it, Like they
could have done an entire series on that. Like everything
everything else is not relevant really to this podcast, but
that thing. I have said this publicly yet so that
you guys will you know, don't don't breaking breaking a
little news if this makes if this makes it in,
I feel like they won't kill me. UM. I was

(19:03):
interviewed for the documentary and didn't make it into the
final cut. What what? What was your spicy commentary? Tell
us it was the only reason I'm saying this was
because it was about this. It was about this, this
sort of internet thing. So I was, yeah, that was
That was last February, UM, And I didn't know it
was for their documentary until like October. So I know
that you've done a lot of great coverage on Christopher

(19:26):
Boozy's report. If you don't know who Christopher Boozy is,
he runs Bought Sentinel, which is an organization that analyzes
Twitter data, and his analysis shows that a lot of
this hate that's been thrown at Megan has been driven
by I would say a lot you were accounts than
folks might suspect. In fact, just a few accounts have
been able to artificially influence the conversation around Megan on

(19:46):
social media. He found that only eighty three accounts generate
seventy of Megan Markle hate content on Twitter, and they
estimate that a combined they have a combined unique potential
reach of seventeen million users, which again, like to me,
that only a handful of accounts would be able to
so effectively dominate and shape the conversation about one person

(20:09):
is kind of wild to me. This is probably like
one of the it's one of the few day driven
stories that I've reported on in my career, but the
numbers shocked me. So what happened here was I had
been following Bought Sentinel for a while because um, I've
done misinformation reporting and my I know some of my

(20:31):
colleagues had quoted from them before, for for about a
climate change story or something like that. So like Christopher
Boozy and Boston and all known in the misinformation industry,
and he tweeted something about I can't even remember what
it was. He made some comment about Megan and Harry,
and all of a sudden his replies were swarmed with

(20:52):
these people. Because that's what happens if you say something
nice about Megan and Harry. At some point, people will
come and start swarming your replies, particularly if you're verified
at cat out and it got nasty, like somebody made
some comment about his mother who had died of COVID.
Oh my god. Yeah, and you know because of that,
He's like, what's going on here? Like what is this? This?

(21:13):
Who are these people who have all of a sudden
started coming for me? I'm going to look into them.
So he ran hashtag analysis, well, he in Boughton all
ran the hashtag analyzes with uh different I could pull
it up, but I don't know where it is on
my computer, with different um like hashtags and words in there,
looking for all of the tweets about Harry and Megan

(21:35):
that you know, in one period of time. And then
they went through those numbers and started looking at the
accounts that tweeted the most, the accounts that were the
most influential, like uh, he sent all of the data
to me so that I could check it myself, and
our data reporters looked at and they're like, yeah, that's cool,
this is this is obviously legit. But um, part of

(21:59):
if you're active on Royal Twitter, you start seeing the
same accounts in your mentions. For me, I see them
and that I mute them. And I had always suspected
that there were there were people who were very, very
active and basically like doing this with all of their
free time, but seeing that small number was really shocking

(22:20):
to me. And I remember a Royal commentator who I
actually I respect her a whole bunch. I don't agree
with her all the time, but I really respect her.
She's a pr person who does really good analysis of
Harry and Megan and the Royal family from her point
of view in media relations. But she said, like, why
is this a big deal? You'll always find haters for

(22:41):
for people online, And it was like, the big deal
is because that's not organic. You can't just say that
there are all these people on Twitter who hate Megan
Harry And yeah, I'm sure I follow some people who
don't like Megan and Harry, who you know are our
other reporters, you know, people in the industry, or you

(23:02):
know a few people I fall from college are tired
of Harry and Megan. But they'll do one tweet and
then they will go back to their lives. Right, They
will not just keep going with the stream of negativity
and you know every everything, like peeps, there's there's someone
who's thing is posting racist cartoons with Megan and Harry
and perpetuating all of these conspiracy theories and stereotypes and

(23:28):
just trying to get them out to as many people
as possible. Like that's the thing I would actually you
should try this out bridget um as an experiment, like
tweets something paused about Megan Harry and see what happens
here mentions because I got it. Yeah, yeah, I think
there's a there's a podcaster. I think what even as
Kate Kennedy, she hosts the podcast be There in five,

(23:48):
she has this a huge, thriving Facebook community, and that
she said like I have to go private because I've
made an episode about Megan and Harry and I know
that it's going to be bought Botswarm City, and so
she has to go private when she does that, Like,
and I think that like something that you said about
when how they give you cruel nicknames and like are
shitty to you personally, I think it's a silencing tactic.

(24:11):
So that like everyone who has something positive or even
not even positive just accurate to say about about this
person that they hate will know that doing so will
come at a personal cost. Like, if you're gonna treat
something positive about Megan and Harry, is it worth the
kind of thing that the kind of folks are gonna
be in your mentions, you know, getting on you for it. Like,

(24:31):
I think it's a very clear silencing tactic to shut
down the discourse that they don't want to happen. So
two things there. You said that your friend was talking
about bots. That's the thing. The people here and the
people who drives, they're not bucks, They're not This isn't
a situation where some PR firm in Los Angeles or
London has bought up a bunch of accounts just you

(24:53):
know to share stories about the royal family or say
a few things. These are people. These are people who
devote ton to posting this negative content. Christopher Boozy coined
the term single purpose hate account for this for this
sort of thing, and I think it's a great phrase
and it can be applied, you know, in in any
fandom you see. But like, they're not bots, these are
actual people. You can really see the silencing aspect um

(25:17):
in everything that happens to a UK reporter who is
I would I would call him an internet friends. We've
met in person a few times. But Omen Scobe he
wrote the book Finding Freedom, which we now know Harry
and Megan like told their press person to send him
information and stuff. So but I I know that other

(25:39):
Royal reporters, Omen Scoby and a few others have gotten
death threats, and I've gotten I've gotten death threats. Our
security team had to check into that for me. But
people don't want anything to disrupt their narrative and it
has like it's like nothing to do with you. But
if you're out there and you are trying to spread

(26:04):
the truth which is not what they believe, you know,
it can get dicey. Jesus, should we get into some
of Christopher Boozy, who who runs the Bots Sentinels research,
some of the some of that report, you know, the
ellis covered in a bunch too. The data is really
fascinating to me. So to break it down, of those

(26:24):
eight three accounts, they identified fifty five single purpose anti
Megan marcle hate accounts that he says they sort of
function as the primary hate accounts, and then twenty eight
secondary hate accounts that basically amplified anti Megan markle content
from those earlier fifty five accounts. So basically, once a
primary account tweets something, those twenty eight secondary accounts would

(26:44):
then quickly boost that content i e. Coordination and have
to be clear like, as you said, these are these
are not bots, these are like real people, and these
tactics violate Twitter's rules. Twitter has rules against coordination and
things like that. So how are are they able to
avoid detection? Well, his report found that things like pairing
negative comments about Megan and Harry with positive contents about

(27:06):
other royals and in an attempt to sort of evade detection.
So it's like, oh, we're not a hate account, We're
just a Royalis account, but it's all going to be
mostly anti Megan Markel suprinkle in a few other other
tweets for for plausible deniability, um temporarily deactivating their accounts
so that they won't be suspended, only to reactivate later,
which is pretty clever, I would say, putting parity in

(27:28):
their profiles even though their account like really is not
a parody account, and then using coded or like coded
or dog whistle racist and sexist language. And so this
is something that as someone who has got a lot
of work in the myths and disinformation space really just
burns my beans. How people will it's so obvious what

(27:49):
they're saying, and what the what the like, what the
what they're trying to say, but they'll thinly veil it
in a way that you know is meant to avoid
detection and to have that plausible deniability. So it's like, like,
what did I say that was racist or sexist? I
just evoked some really common racist or sexist trope. An

(28:10):
example of the sort of things that people say that
that is encoded language but definitely is based in racism.
Massage Noir is that Megan is a violent person with
a bad temper, so whenever anything happens that's good, mostly
like good for William and Kate. You'll see all of
these tweets and YouTube videos being like Megan must be

(28:31):
throwing dishes in Monacito, or like we can hear the
angry screams from that they live in Monatito's, Like we
can hear the angry screams from Monacito. Now, like Harry
better duck, Megan's throwing punches because she's so angry, and
I mean, like that's the angry black woman trope that
that's not You're not even trying that hard, like barely
a dog with all. Yeah, so you mentioned Twitter. This

(28:51):
is the this is the thing, and this is why
like people who hate Megan Harry always like this report
is an accurate No, sorry, it is. Twitter has very
they have their earn standards about what they considered to
be coordination. And an interesting thing that is in another
later report done by Bot Sentinel and Christopher Boozy is
evidence from like the early days of anti Megan Twitter

(29:14):
where people were organizing in a chat from a program
called me we, which I had never heard of until
like all all of the investigation to this started going on.
But I've spent about like five hours going through their
archives and you can see people in there talking about
like I'm going to tweet this or oh, Paris Hilton
retweeted me guys, let's try to get this hashtag trending.

(29:36):
And I'm sure they haven't a new way that's not
me we that U that they know use now for
that kind of thing. But what what you said burns
my beans? I like that phrase. What what what really
burns my beans about? Twitter's response to this was they
put out a statement like we only got rid of
like three of the accounts that we saw for violations,

(29:58):
and then like in the next week, they started just
shutting all of them down, and they and I asked them, like, hey,
can I get you save it from you please, because
you've shut down like ten of these accounts and you
told other media outlets that our report wasn't correct. So
that's been super fun. But if you look at the
accounts they were in, they were labeled in that first report.
For a while, a lot of them went away, and

(30:20):
then Elon must bought Twitter and now many of them
are back again with their same handles, so they basically
were banned by Twitter. Ellen came brought them back because
this is this is the kind of discourse that will
make Twitter a better place, a more thoughtful place, a
place where it's like I hate that and I think

(30:40):
like Something that I also want to mention is that
Twitter's algorithm eventually was amplifying this hateful content. According to
the report, researchers use Twitter accounts without friends or followers
during the research, and after viewing two hate accounts, and
then Twitter's algorithm began suggesting numerous hate accounts for them
to follow. On multiple occasions, Twitter recommended that they follow
these hate accounts. Oh it still it still happens to me,

(31:03):
Like it still happens to me. I, Um, they're always
new accounts popping up, but I don't. I don't want
to block because then it gives people the satisfaction of
knowing that they've been blocked me. So, yeah, I'm mute.
But if a new account pops up in my mentions,
like trashing on me, and I'll look at it, I'll go, oh, yeah, yeah,
I know I'm muting you. It will recommend to me
to follow other accounts of people who are attacking me

(31:25):
and my mentions. And it's like that the algorithm shouldn't
work that way. You shouldn't try to be encouraging abuse. Yeah,
And I think that it's like what you said about
Twitter do like getting rid of those accounts quietly, like
denying your report publicly and then quietly being like, Okay,
actually this is a problem. We need to do something.
I think it really speaks to I don't know, I

(31:48):
guess sometimes I I don't want to use the term
bad actor, but sometimes I think that the people running
platforms are not running platforms in a way that I
think encourages It's not responsible, Like that's not like somebody
who was interested in having a platform that foster's thoughtful
conversation and discourse would not behave that way. I'll put

(32:09):
it that way. Yeah, yeah, no, And uh, Twitter is
definitely the platform where I don't like to use the
word powerful, but Twitter is definitely the platform where these
accounts and uh, you know the crazy anti Harry and
Megan people have these power because and this was this
was another publication by Bought Sentinel looking at these accounts.

(32:33):
What that looked at was official. I say official, but
like this means they write for a paper, they get
on TV as royal commentators, like royal reporters and commentators,
some of them interact with these accounts. But what's more,
some of these accounts purposefully target these people and and
you know, like one of I remember when when this

(32:54):
came out, like one of the ladies who was listed
in it was like, what's like, I don't believe these
conspiracy theories. I'm like no, no, no no, no, no, it's
we're not saying that. We're just saying, like, look at
all the people who are tweeting at you trying to
get you to believe this thing, and in one particular
case that that this person is still on the air.
Her name is Angela Levin. But the report like showed

(33:14):
with screenshots how a conspiracy theory started on Twitter from
one of these accounts, and she said it on TV
like while she was commenting, you know, that's the sort
of thing if they're all talking to each other on Tumbler,
you know, Okay, not great, but it's at least it's
insulated on Twitter. Anyone can see it. It It can go

(33:35):
anywhere and anyone can believe it. I think that's exactly
why we see Twitter being this battleground for power and
like quote culture wars and ideology, because so many journalists
and media makers and editors are on Twitter every day.
Like we're probably way too fucking much to be honest
with you, but you can. Really it's like a dedicated

(33:56):
dedicated people on Twitter can make things into news, and
we've seen that happen for good with things like Black
Lives Matter and Me Too. But that power for good
could also be weaponized and used for evil and used
to legitimize things that are just not true, like harmful
conspiracy theories and it sounds like that's exactly what happened here. Yeah,

(34:17):
I mean, it's it is. The word battleground is is
definitely what it is because there are two very distinct,
separate sides, and everyone is trying to control the narrative,
control the hashtags. And I, you know, since I spend
a lot of time in that Twitter world because of
my reporting, it's always funny to me when it breaks

(34:37):
out and like, real people are seeing these things. I
can't tell you how many of my colleagues have read
some of my stories about all this and they've just
gone like, Ellie, how's this real? Like how do people
care this much? Like what what is? What's what's going
on here? And I have no answer for them because

(34:58):
I've been in the world too much that like, okay, yeah,
you know it. It makes sense that Megan Markle's has sister,
Samantha Markle, is engaging with these Twitter accounts and she's
been feeding information to the worst anti Megan YouTube channel
for years. You know, everyone knows this. I've just you know,
I finally laid it all out and then the story
goes up and people are like, this is bat shit insane.

(35:19):
I know, it's one of those things where when I
talk about it, the reality of what's happening, I feel
like I sound like um Charlie from Always Sunday, Like
the corkboard, like there is no pepe st Like how
deep this thing goes, how coordinated it is. It is
people who are not as online as we probably are.

(35:41):
It would it would sound like the rantings of somebody
who is not well, but it's true. Can I tell
you things I was interviewed for. I was interviewed on
the BBC this second like, because Harry Megan's definitely stually
dropped in two parts. They had like one part one
week and then another part of the second week second
week of BBC World reached out and there like, can
we interview you get an American perspective on Harry Megan?

(36:04):
Because I woke up at two thirty so I could
watch it when I came out, so I was ready
and rare in to go if anybody wanted to talk
to me. And my mom wanted to see it, so
she went to YouTube and search my name, and you
know what happens. If you search my name, you see
videos from these people. You see videos attacking you, attacking me,
And she was she was. She called me. She's like,

(36:24):
I didn't know it was this bad. I didn't know
that there are people who care this much that they're
making YouTube videos attacking you. So my mom's eyes were
open to this world recently. I'm so sorry. And you're
just doing your job. It's not like it's not like
you're just doing your job. Yeah, but um, as any

(36:47):
royal reporter will tell you, it's not this is part
of the job. Now it's become so fierce, it's become
so divided that if you write about the royal family
like this is what you are getting yourself into. Now

(37:08):
do you see this as a relatively new phenomenon Like
when Trump got into office. I do think that conspiracy
theories and this kind of dedicated online disinformation and harassment
campaigns became much more commonplace and our discourse. Do you
see this as a new phenomenon where being a royal
reporter in the nineties, death threats and hate videos about

(37:28):
yourself perhaps would not have been part of the job
the same way it is now. So no one can
believe me when I say this, but Royal Twitter used
to be a kind of weird but overall nice place
this was back in I remember, because I started I
first got into Royal Twitter when Prince George was born,
and you know, there there would be some some people

(37:51):
wouldn't like Kate Middleton. There have always been people who
don't like her, and you know that that's cool, you
do you, but there wouldn't be this overwhelming tide of negativity.
I never saw any accounts that their sole purpose was
to dinner grate Kate. I saw a few people say
somethings about her, but nothing, you know, nothing like what
you see for Megan. And it stayed that way for
a long time. And honestly, it was when Megan entered

(38:16):
the scene that this became more and more and more divisive.
And I said this when we were talking earlier Bridget,
but um, you know, some of these accounts started posting
anti Megan stuff before the wedding, like the seeds were
there and they were so, you know, before Megan had

(38:39):
really even entered the public life, the public sphere. In
those early days of her being on the scene, so
much of it was kind of reaching like, oh, she's
an actor, that means that she is a phony or
a narcissist, like some of them were really really reaching
just to have a reason to hate this person that
we really didn't even know that much about yet. Yeah,

(39:01):
and obviously a lot of it was racialized. You know,
we we had everyone knows is we had the Daily
Mail headline of Harry's girls straight out of Compton. We
had we had a columnist writing about her exotic d NA,
just a lot lots of stuff like that, And Prince
Harry even issued a statement about that, saying that like
the racist abused on social media and the racist like

(39:22):
vibes is the wrong word, but like the the undertones
of some of the coverage, like every we all, we
all need to stop that it does seem very racialized.
That like as Suon as she came on the scene,
people were really reaching to find any reason to hate her.
And I think to your point about how it's so
racially coded, that's one of the things that I really
struggle with because you know, you just know, like that

(39:44):
headline straight out of Compton, or when she was pregnant, like, oh,
what what's archie skin tone gonna be? Like? Sometimes you know,
as a black woman, you know when someone is saying
something that is racialized, they might not be there. They
might not be coming out and calling you a slur
or like you know, doing it in such an explicit way,

(40:05):
but you can you can feel when someone is trafficking
in massage, noir or racism against you. And I think
what's hard is that we have been so trained as
a society to not talk about it openly, to ignore
it and not speak up about it, and so you
just have to kind of I think it creates a
climate where it becomes normalized at normalized as discourse, as

(40:27):
legitimate discourse when it really shouldn't be. Yeah, I mean
you can Megan, Megan marrying into the royal family and
everything that happened afterwards really prompted I think a can
we say long overdue but to a discussion about race

(40:49):
in in the UK in particular, but also just across
the board, because you know, what is the difference between
two women who married into the royal family. You have
Megan and you have Kate, and you in many cases
just like don't even look at their behavior. Just look
at what they're wearing or you know that that that
they're pregnant, and you will see, you know, these these

(41:12):
little differences that don't make sense. You wrote that that
viral piece about the like comparing the way that the
press covers when Megan does something and when another royal
does the exact same thing, like holding hands, for instance,
in public, when Megan and Harry held hands, people who
are like, oh, they can't even keep their hands off
of each other. It's disgusting, it's so disrespectful this and that,

(41:33):
and then another royal doing the exact same thing, and
it gives and and not having that kind of corporage.
It's just like, Okay, they're holding hands, and it makes
it clear that this kind of hyper focus that Megan
is under right, that it's just only seemingly reserved for her.
And yeah, like, as I said, as a person of color,
I know that when that kind of extra scrutiny on

(41:56):
every little thing, every little move you make, is reserved
just for you. You know, it's racialized. You couldn't feel it.
You're not supposed to talk about it openly, but you
know it, and they're not talking about it openly and
not talking about it publicly, Like that's been the real
thing because you have all of these people, um, you know,
all these people online, people who recognize what's going on,

(42:17):
like you Bridget and you're talking to a bunch of people,
and in this case a lot of people in the
media who are writing these headlines and are talking to
these people in the palace and perpet you know, getting
these headlines and getting these stories out. They they don't
see it. And not only that people who write the headlines,

(42:38):
but the people who are making decisions at tech platforms
like Twitter and YouTube. One of the things that I
know that you have reported on that still just kind
of blows my mind is that we've talked a lot
about Twitter in this episode. But but TEMs it will
also looked at YouTube accounts and found that this is
big business, right. Trashing Megan Markle and lying about her
is lucrative. They found that twenty five YouTube channels earned

(43:01):
around three point five million from ad revenue according to
Data Analysis Agency, and that three of the most successful
anti Megan marco had accounts generated almost half a million
dollars during their existence. And basically they just filmed these
low quality racist videos full of inaccuracies and baseless conspiracies
about how she you know, faked her pregnancy or used

(43:22):
a bait, a moon bump or whatever to like fake
our pregnancy. What does it tell you about our media
ecosystem that you can make half a million dollars just
spreading low quality, not even high quality sophisticated racist lives,
but low quality racist lies about one person. I mean,
so we saw and obviously this is a very very

(43:46):
different case, but we saw with Johnny Depp and an
Amber Heard how content you know, either micro analyzing Amber
Heard and trashing her like and this is like, we
can just let's keep this a judgment free zone. Like
there weren't videos looking at what Johnny said that went viral.
There weren't people like analyzing his test videos where people

(44:07):
were analyzing his testimony that went viral. It was Amber
like on TikTok, on YouTube videos attacking her, making fun
of her. They did really, really well. And the thing
with Megan is that you know, and obviously similar to Amber,
but when it comes to YouTube videos about Megan, there
is an audience. And that's that's the thing that was

(44:30):
crazy to me when I first started looking into this,
because I actually, well, the biggest YouTube account that had
been around for a long time, Yankee Wally, was a
Welsh pensioner who literally would pull up her phone and
talk to her phone and scroll through and like find
pictures and and talk about that and then upload everything.

(44:50):
For years, she was spreading these conspiracy theories. She was
attacking the Royal family, attacking Harry and Megan and making money,
like making serious money. Like she she is come back
online and like she's very unhappy that her YouTube channel
is no more. It got it got shut down. But

(45:10):
the funny thing was, I believe it didn't get shut
down because of anything she said about Harry and Megan.
Thanks to YouTube's rules. I believe the reason it got
shut down was because of attacks she made on open Scope,
the reporter that I mentioned earlier. Because and this is
this is why YouTube kid get away with it. YouTube

(45:31):
is very specific rules about what counts is harassment and
what counts is hate speech. If you in order for
it to count as that, in order for it to
you know, get you either kicked off or get your
videos taken down, you need to attack an intrinsic attribute
of someone. So like there are there is a specific
there are specific things that you have to attack. And

(45:52):
if you attack anything else, okay, that's fine, like or
or you spread conspiracy theories, that's fine. So some of
these are like race, gender, sexual orientation, but a lot
of it is racialized. But it's not someone saying out loud,
you know Megan, we don't like Megan because she's black.
It is Megan is super angry, or Megan is classless,

(46:15):
you know, Megan is Magan is very low class or
I've heard. You haven't lived until you've heard, you know,
like a British person say Ratchett to describe Megan like.
I didn't even know they had that word in the UK. Yeah.
The commentary to in terms of her dad online has
been yeah, it's it's it's deeply disturbing to me. One

(46:38):
of the things I learned from watching the Netflix thing,
I didn't realize that she had like a good relationship
with her dad before all this happened. I just I
didn't think. I mean, I guess I didn't look into
it hard enf but I didn't realize until I watched
this documentary that it's like, no, they had like a
really good relationship when she was growing up. They had
a good relationship up until he was approached by the press. Yes,

(47:00):
l to Philip. Philip said, I can answer that because
I wrote a big story about this so specifically they
had they were talking to each other, had a good relationship.
He even talked to Harry on the phone after they
were engaged, and everything was good until a paparazzi photographer
approached him at his home in Mexico is like little

(47:21):
little house he was living in a Mexico and said, hey,
why don't I take some photos of you getting ready
for the wedding that we can get out there because
there had been a lot of bad press about you know,
so what happens when anybody famous pops up, they go
look at your family. They're gonna find absolutely everything, any
black sheep and and all this stuff. So the photographer

(47:41):
kind of convinced him to get some good press. So
these photos were published, like him being measured for a suit,
or him looking at a picture of Harry and Megan
on a computer and just stuff like that. In the documentary, Yeah,
it's crazy, and those photos when were like, I people
don't talk to me about before doing royal stuff on BuzzFeed,

(48:04):
but I really wish they would, Like bus needed a
story about that, like featuring those photos and if you
people accepted as legit. And then the week before the wedding,
the Mail on Sunday, which is British media is so weird.
So there's a Daily Mail. The Sunday edition is a
completely different staff, like the Mail on Sunday is different
from the Daily Mail, and it's a little more it's
a little more prestigious. But right before the wedding, the

(48:27):
Mail on Sunday published a story showing that Thomas Markle
had been working with the paparazzi, and I believe it
alluded that he had shared the profits the paparazzi and
Thomas Markel had split the profits for that. That was
where the relationship broke down, but it didn't even like
completely breakdown. Then Megan and Harry were still trying to
get him over for the wedding, and then he had

(48:47):
a heart attack and he said confusing things about that period,
so like no one was it a heart attack? Was
he too embarrassed to go? Was it a little bit
of both? Maybe? Um, But the fact he lied to
Megan initially about collaborating with the paparazzi destroyed their relationship.
But before that they like they were good, they were close.
Megan used to have a lifestyle blog called The Tig

(49:10):
and she she She's wrote like very beautiful Father's Day
posts about him and all the support that he'd given
her throughout his life, and even with you know, her
half sister smant the Markle. That's something that she says
all the time when someone puts a microphone in her face,
that like, Megan was their father's favorite, she was his
little baby. And watching the public, watching the public narrative

(49:35):
about this, you know when it comes Tomas Markel, if
you like Megan and Harry, you're like, no, this is
classic abusive behavior. Like you are speaking to the media
and you are saying all of this because you want
attention from the person. You want money acknowledged and money.
But everybody else is like, how dare Megan a band?
And her father likes he's so ill, he just had

(49:57):
a stroke, he hasn't met his grandchildren. And you know,
you don't see any of the logical reasons why she
wouldn't want to do this based on whether or not
you like Harry or Megan, And that's what most of
it comes down to. And I also think, like I
think that for people of color, women of color, I
think the subtext is that we are not allowed to

(50:18):
have complex relationships with our families. Even though every family
is complicated. People have complicated relationships, like layered complicated, complex
relationships with their parents all the time. That is commonplace.
But when Megan has it, it's something you know, she
abandoned her dad this and that. Like you know, as
I said, I don't really follow the royals that closely.

(50:40):
I dip into the news here and there. And I
think this is a good example of how they target
people who are perhaps low information on the issue, you know,
casual observers, to effectively create a narrative because I assumed
that that media narrative that we hear is correct. You
know that Megan cut off her poor sick father, But
had I read your reporting a little more closely, I

(51:00):
would know that's not really the case. And I think
this is really meant to target folks who are just
casual observers because they know that they can get those
folks to believe something about Megan Markle that just isn't true. Yeah,
I mean that you see not done so much anymore.
But like Thomas Markele has made appearances on uk TV,
like he he was interviewed by Pierce Morgan more than

(51:22):
once that I don't even don't even get me started. Yeah, sorry,
sorry for bringing up that name, but yeah, and you
know that's Morning TV. And if you you're you are
taking this person who is obviously a toxic figure in
Megan's life and and let's just use the word problematic
and amplifying everything that he's saying. Well, some people who

(51:43):
don't follow the world is very you know that closely,
that's the narrative they're going to start believing instead of
looking to see like, well, wait, what did he do?
Like there has to be a reason here, right, there
are valid reasons to not like Harry and Megan. But no,
and that's like we're not talking about that in this
podcast because that's such as minority of people who behave rationally.

(52:07):
But anyway to think that that came out here was
that her press secretary at the time had coordinated with
the authors of the book Finding Freedom to give information
to him. Like Harry and Megan knew that their press
person was going to go talk to the reporters who
are writing this long book, and everyone always knew that,

(52:28):
like Finding Freedom was going to be Harry and Megan's
side of the story. But no one, I think ever
expected to see how how much of their their hands
weren't like that there were emails exchanged about what to
tell these reporters. So Megan ended up like basically apologizing
to the court saying, like, I completely forgot about this
one email exchange. And if you saw in the documentary,

(52:50):
you know, you know that part of the documentary where
Megan goes, he's your brother. That that's that's that's this,
that's what they're talking about. Because the press person who
submitted during the appeal, the press person, former press person
for Harry and Megan, gave them like all these emails,
gave the daily emails, gave the court, let's just say,

(53:11):
gave the court. Gave the court all of these emails.
And um, you see the fall from that in the
documentary because Harry and Megan are talking and they're talking
about the fact that their former press person you know,
is like currently working for William and that's your brother. Yeah.

(53:31):
That was like Megan's her most authentic moment in the
documentary for me, just like very obviously not in front
of the cameras, just like having having a movement. Yeah,
and I think you know, your point is such a
good one. Of like, I think that people can have
people can have legitimate criticisms or takes or opinions about
the coordination that they that their team had with this book.

(53:53):
But so like when you said, oh, there's all these
legitimate reasons to dislike them, I was like, oh, yeah,
I know. I could not even begin to talk about
like what those are, like, I don't know because of
what I what dominates the conversation are the conspiracy theories,
the lies, the racism, the nonsense, And it just creates
this dynamic where we don't actually get to have the
conversation that we perhaps should. It's just wanted with ridiculous stuff.

(54:17):
Laney Gossip Lane Louis. She has a blog called Laney Sip.
She made an excellent point when um, the edition of
Vogue that Megan guests edited came out that I think about.
I think about her point all the time. She said, like,
we could talk about the fact that Megan is using
really flowery language, and like some of the stuff you're

(54:37):
saying about I think it's like a Children of the
Moon or something. She was using what we considered to
be like hippie California language. Laney said, you know, I
would love to talk about this, like, but you can't
because of all of the racist, sexist, xenophobic stuff that's
dominating the conversation. Like there there's no room for you know,

(54:58):
making fun of her gently you for this little thing. Yeah,
and I think that's by design. It disinformation. It's like
a classic thing. It sucks. It sucks all the oxygen
out of the room when it comes to conversations. And
I would argue, like it shuts down discourse, and so
everyone's all concerned about free speech this and that, Like
it creates a climate where people can't talk about what
they want to talk about because there's no room for it.

(55:21):
There's no room for it, and you will be dealing
with people who believe their own version of the truth,
like I mean, yeah, you compared to Q and on
earlier in the show. And really that's sort of what
a large portion of the Royal Internet has become. Like
there are some people you never be able to convince
them that you know, Megan was pregnant there despite all

(55:45):
all of the evidence of the country. There are some
people who believe that wholeheartedly. And if you say anything
on the Internet like oh, like look at this picture
of you know it doesn't. This picture Megan's bump that
she showed in the documentary look cute. They will all
jump in and but actually you and say no, no no, no,
she she she thinked it's a moon bump, like the

(56:06):
idea of like what is the true royal story? No
one can agree on it anymore. And Ellie, you were
telling me how a lot of content creators who made
content about the Amber Heard Johnny Depp defamation trial have
now jumped to making content about Megan Markle, people who
you know, started making a name for themselves during the
Amber Heard trial by making these videos attacking Amber Heard. Well,

(56:28):
you know, trials over officially. Now I think like she
just abandoned her appeal. If i'm yeah, I think I
think that's I know, yeah, yeah, cool. Who are you gonna?
Who are you gonna? You need to find another woman
that you can attack? And you know that sounds a
little facetious, but you look at um Megan the Stallion,

(56:48):
how she was covered, and you kind of wonder at
least that was a lawsuit. It makes sort of sense
that people who covered Amber Heard would pivot to Megan
the Stallion and then somehow they found out that if
you make a video belt Megan Marco, you are going
to get views. Don't don't know how they tripped and
fell into that, but you now see people who made

(57:10):
videos like even in some cases like lawyers YouTube lawyers
who made videos analyzing the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
court case are making videos analyzing Harry Megan's documentary, Like
what what what? What? What qualifies you for that? But
also like you're kind of pull on a bait and
switch here, my dude, right, And I think it just

(57:32):
really shows like it's misogyny the whole way down, like
misogyny cells. There will always our internet landscape. In our
internet landscape, there will always be a soft place for
misogyny to land and be amplified. And the one the
like do you think that this is gonna be kind
of going forward the new way to sort of sway

(57:54):
public opinion and like manipulate public opinion going forward? Where
the whole cottage industry, tree of quote, body language experts
and legal experts like is the thing? So like I'm
really glad you brought up the body language experts because
to me, you're asking like, what's what's the direction that
you can see this sort of hate going in. I

(58:14):
think that the rise of body language experts, um that's
I would say that's probably over the past year. I've
seen a few of them, like get bigger and bigger.
I think we're going to see a lot of that
because you can make it up like I don't think
your body language expert. I think you're looking at a
video of somebody and you you think Megan is a narcissist.

(58:36):
So you're going to find something in her eyebrow or
in the curve of her lip that is proof that
she's a narcissist. And guess what, people who don't like
her are gonna believe you. I think we're going to
be seeing a lot more of that with just the
public figures in general, with and you know, so far,
it looks like people are really really happy to do
it to famous women and women of color. So I

(58:59):
think things like that where the facts don't matter, where
you can set yourself up as an expert. You can
set yourself up as someone who knows all of this
background knowledge, and there will be a place on the
Internet where people believe you. And if there are enough
people in that little place where people believe you, it's
gonna get out into the it's gonna get into the
broader sphere. There will be a time when they will

(59:22):
want to push their narrative in a very public way.
I mean, in the tiniest, tiniest step in the right direction.
I know that last year YouTube made a change that
they d ranked anti Megan Markel results from their search
for me. That's, like, I guess, the smallest step because
if I was running a platform like YouTube, if you
type in Megan Merkel or really any subject, people, the

(59:46):
first thing that the results that are prioritized should not
be from single youth hate accounts. They should not be
from accounts that that are making money from lying about
this thing for any topic. And so for me, I
happy to see it, will champion it. But it is
like the smallest step that they could actually take in
in responsibly managing the platform. And you know that, I'm

(01:00:07):
sure you this is an old old song to sing
for you, But they didn't make that change until I
reach out for comment. And that's true of so many
tech companies, is that the onus is on reporters to
find something that's bad, to find a feature that's not great,
to find, you know, a community of hate accounts to
find uh, you know, like members of the KKK and

(01:00:29):
other hate groups, and the tech companies are reactive. So
I hate reach out being like, why do I see
a video claiming Megan Markel is a narcissist? When when
I do a search, and then like a few days later,
it was, oh, look, all of the videos when you
search Megan Markel are by verified accounts, and they're all
by major news sites. And you know that's not the
way for tech companies to operate either. You know, if

(01:00:52):
you want to keep your platforms free of hate, you
need to look for the hate. It will definitely be there. Yeah,
any time, like we've been in this game for a while,
pretty much, any time a tech company does something that's
even the slightest step in the right direction, they didn't
just like grow a heart overnight like in The Grinch.

(01:01:13):
They it was because someone like you, or like an
organizer or someone pushed them to do that. They are
so reactive it never occurs to them that you don't
have to wait until you get negative pr or until
there's a crisis, or until you know someone is asking
you something to make a responsible ethical decision about how
your platform is run. Yeah, I mean the same thing

(01:01:35):
the I I have attacked YouTube's current policy for harassment
and hate speech, but they only instituted that because a
right wing YouTuber was attacking um, a l g B
t q uh YouTuber and I think, like the example
that he always uses that he called him a list
be queer. And this guy made a video compilation of

(01:01:58):
like all of the things that this right wing and
has said about him, and was like, YouTube, what's going
on attacking He's obviously attacking me because I am a
gay man. And YouTube was like that, that's fine, and
then like media backlash three days later, Oh hey we
have a new policy. Yeah. I believe in a world
where it doesn't take somebody, it doesn't take the harm

(01:02:19):
to make a change in the right direction. You know,
that's the word I want to believe in. Yeah. And well,
just another another thing with YouTube is even like one
of the things that happens before your account goes away
is it gets demonetized. So yes, YouTube can can stop
you from making money off your hate, but until you
cross a certain line, like, you can still spew your

(01:02:41):
hate all over you can still spread these conspiracy theories,
You can talk about people so that your your viewers,
your listeners will then go attack them on social media.
And if I learned, like the biggest thing I've learned
from my work in the past year looking at you know,
hate groups online against Megan and Harry, it's that YouTube

(01:03:01):
is just a festering pool for so many different things
like it, and it's even a community like people people
talk to each other in the comments, and people like
YouTuber encourages the company almost seems to encourage this, and
people can make money for hate and it's yeah, I

(01:03:22):
mean it was seeing some of these accounts that have
monetized their antemtical content. I know one British person who
runs a channel like let's say what a quitter job,
like literally quit her job in order to make these
videos every few days because of the amount of money
she was getting from YouTube. Something is broken. Like when

(01:03:43):
that is when that is a possibility, something is very
very wrong. Elie. I have to ask like, like what
is at steak here? Like like what is at steak?
And do you think there's any hope for the truth,
you know, being something that's prioritized going forward? I think
that he you can't agree on what is the truth.
And you can't have a conversation about what is the truth,

(01:04:05):
and you can't have a conversation in good faith, then
just the the the Internet dialogue, everything is going to
stay broken. And the thing that these tech companies do
is they let us stay in our own little groups
and falls through this kind of hatred and these kind

(01:04:27):
of conspiracy theories, and people begin to believe that, Like
when I tell you that there are people on Twitter
who hate Megan, who genuinely believe that she was a
prostitute before she met Harry. Some people even believe that
she was Prince Andrew's prostitute before she met Prince Harry.
And people who believe that she faked her pregnancies. Some
people who believe that she, you know, like her children

(01:04:50):
when she's done press appearances with her children, those children
are not hers. There's no latter conspiracy theory showing how
like I say showing, I'm doing air quotation marks when
I say show, but that you know, the child of
like a TV anchor is actually Archie and they only
bring him out for certain occasions, or when Megan was
carrying Archie in a like a front a front BabyCare carrier, like, no,

(01:05:13):
that was a doll. There are people who believe this.
They are not kidding. And how can you have a
conversation about things like, Okay, Harry, Harry's biography just came out.
He's saying, what's about to come out. Harry's biography will
be coming out. We know what some of the headlines are. Wow,
he's really saying a lot of stuff here. Let's have

(01:05:34):
a conversation about that. You can't because the people who
are going to be entering into that conversation are coming
from their own world. And you know, everyone saw this
play out when it was you know, Trump and Q
and on and everything like that. And when people have
their own belief systems, and when the internet and tech

(01:05:55):
companies encourage them not to branch out and actually like
help them stay in their own little bubble, it makes
the online experience worse. It makes discourse worse. And you know,
and this is this is me because I'm a reporter,
but it makes the news worse because people don't agree
on the truth. And that should be the basic starting

(01:06:18):
point here. Everyone agrees on the truth. If we can't
even establish that, like Megan gave birth to a child,
how are we going to have any conversation about the
Royal family. It was Megan entering the Royal family when
all of this started. And you know, was there some
hate of Kate, yes, But it didn't start getting this
nasty until Megan dating Harry became public knowledge. And when

(01:06:41):
you have that fact, and that is a fact, you
have to ask yourself what is it about Megan? What
was it about Megan before the world even knew her,
before she had even you know, before I think it
was this was like even before the engagement interview that
she and Harry did. What is it about Megan? What
makes her different? That is school we to start this

(01:07:01):
festering and ever growing, you know, bubble of hatred. Well
draw your own conclusions. That is a great place to
leave it. Ellie, Where can folks follow? I know you're
gonna have lots of takes and opinions when the memoir
drops this week. Where can folks follow you? I am

(01:07:26):
on Twitter at least for now at Ellie, Ellie v Hall,
Vias and Victor and I report for BuzzFeed News, So
you can go to BuzzFeed News and search my name
and see all of my stuff. And I have a
Royal family newsletter called The Royalty Um. And if you're
super into all of this stuff and just want to
keep following, keeping up with it with the windsor family,

(01:07:49):
then you can subscribe to me there. Fantastic. I guess
I'm so bad at ending the podcast and what else
have I hope to say? I mean, you're solid there.
Good night and good luck, good night and good luck.
I'll be leave it there. Internet Hate Machine is a
production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool

(01:08:10):
Zone Media, check out our website cool zone media dot com,
or find us on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.