Bot Sentinel released their latest report yesterday. This one is an investigation into how well-known and oft-quoted “royal reporters” are often the ones following, retweeting, corresponding with and amplifying well-known Sussex hate accounts. As always, the most repulsive hate accounts are the ones focused almost solely on the Duchess of Sussex, and the people who run those accounts know which royal commentators are their allies. Bouzy found multiple interactions between the hate accounts and Angela Levin, Richard Fitzwilliams, Richard Palmer, Emily Andrews, Richard Eden, Victoria Arbiter and more. You can see the Bot Sentinel PDF here.
Angela Levin’s interactions with hate accounts were more than all other journalists' and royal commentators' interactions combined. Angela had 102 interactions, and the majority were favorable to the hate accounts. pic.twitter.com/cFx4mhStVQ
— Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) November 9, 2021
Christopher Bouzy spoke to The Grio about what’s happening with the hate accounts and the royal reporters who love them:
Launched in 2018 as a crowdfunded web service, Bot Sentinel is designed to help fight disinformation and targeted harassment on Twitter. The company’s latest tool, the Hate Tracker, features an updated algorithm to ensure that the platform can identify all forms of harassment. To his critics, who claim that he is censoring free speech, Bot Sentinel CEO, Christopher Bouzy, insists that “free speech doesn’t give anyone the right to target, defame, or dox someone they don’t like.”
Bouzy explained to theGrio his evolving vision for the company: “I developed Bot Sentinel to help users identify toxic accounts that target the most vulnerable people online. However, we launched the Hate Tracker to spotlight single-purpose hate accounts targeting high-profile people, especially women and women of color. People need to understand it’s not just random angry people voicing their opinions. These single-purpose hate accounts are coordinated, and some are even profiting from their hatred and harassment.”
In the past two weeks, 47% of the accounts responsible for the majority of the hateful attacks against the Sussexes have either been incapacitated or restricted, including nine accounts which were permanently suspended by Twitter. In an Oct. 27 statement to the Washington Post, Twitter said they were “actively investigating” and would take action on any account violating Twitter rules but saw no evidence of “widespread coordination, the use of multiple accounts by single people, or other platform manipulation tactics.”
Bouzy told theGrio that the scope of Bot Sentinel’s investigation expanded when they observed “an unusual number of hate accounts interacting with journalists who primarily cover the Royal Family.” Further research showed that some journalists were following the “more active and well-known hate accounts.” By definition, these are accounts dedicated to tweeting defamatory content about Harry and Meghan. What value could royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams find in following one account that espouses conspiracy theories that claim Meghan was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, much less six?
The most egregious case was royal biographer, Angela Levin, who follows 19 hate accounts including one who threatened Meghan’s life. She also interacted regularly with two notorious anti-Sussex accounts, Murky Meg and Yankeewally, who were permanently banned from Twitter for violating the platform’s online harassment policy.
In the past, journalists who were caught engaging with these types of toxic accounts feigned ignorance, or like Robert Jobson, royal editor for the Evening Standard, they go with the old standby excuse of everyone who has ever forgotten to use their burner account — they claim they were hacked. The message that Jobson retweeted has since been deleted and the Banana Scribbler account appears to be deactivated.
By contrast, Levin chooses to hide in plain sight with over 100 interactions with accounts monitored by the Hate Tracker. Interactions range from retweets, quoted tweets, or replies, but the report doesn’t evaluate intent. Bouzy notes that the majority of royal reporters and commentators’ interactions with hate accounts “were inconsequential.”
Angela Levin was the most blatant example of someone who was openly interacting, repeating and amplifying all of the wildest and most toxic conspiracies from the hate accounts. People like the Daily Mail royal reporters try to be a bit more careful online, especially since they’re getting their leaks and marching orders from the palaces, not the hate accounts. But there’s a symbiosis happening there, and many Sussex squaders believe to this day that some of the hate accounts are being run BY royal communications offices. At this point, it would not surprise me.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
Call me when they find the links between them and Dan Wooton!
Call me when they find the link to Jason Knauf.
Bingo! All roads lead to Kensington Palace and Jason Knauf is running things on the order of William. This is going to end up like Watergate. They will keep going up the chain until they can finally make the connection to the Cambridges.
I think that’s what we’re starting to see here – a pulling of the thread, so to speak – and as the sweater keeps unraveling, its going to get very ugly/interesting.
Sorry for the weird analogy lol.
The account hrhcate was suspected of being run by Knauf and one journalist openly called him out about it. That account isn’t active anymore. But when it was active it was one of the most vicious ones out there and always trying to report accounts that were pro Meghan.
Hrhcate got dragged when they sent an abusive DM to Janina Gavankar (Meghan’s friend) who then shared the message, LOL, and I’m sure had to deactivate or got banned. But I’m wondering if the account hrhcatherina is the replacement. She (or Jason, lol) posts things about Kate only but her stories are rabid sometimes about Meghan (she did this creepy deep dive about Meghan supposedly “buying” PR when Dior did that tweet about her).
After reading the report, all I could say was “Vast right-wing conspiracy” or in this case “William”
Bot sentinel, please find us an official palace link for Christmas! We’ve been good all year.
I second this!!
Yes we have been very good @ Rapunzel!! We should get a special present as we have been very good at calling out the evil amongst the Sussex haters/liars and POS racists!!
It’s good to have confirmation of what many believed. And I have no doubt there are KP staff burner accounts among them.
M&H fans were right about A LOT. I also wouldn’t be surprised if RRs and the palace had some burner accounts among them.
The only thing surprising is that Angela Levin only had 100 interactions with hate accounts. I would have guessed at least 10,000.
I know. I thought the number would be higher. There is no doubt that most, if not all, of the rota interact with the hate accounts. I think most are more sly about it. They either DM or use a burner. I have no doubt Camilla Tominey is one. One hate account said Camilla T owed them.
I also have no doubt that H&M either knew this already or suspected it.
Tell us again of how all members of the royal family had to grin and bear their way through similar experiences with the press. Tells us again how no one could help Meghan because “they all went through it.” There is nothing normal or “part of the job” about the hatred and bile toward a woman who has done nothing to deserve it beyond being biracial and American.
100 %. Edward and the rest of the RF are so fake with their “we all went through it” empathy. Out them!
Not a surprise, Levinis the worst. Although I’m shocked Dan Wooton isn’t getting more of a side-eye.
DW probably gets most of his hate from the source…William and KP. And his own mind.
@ Jais, Wooten is the puppet of the rage monster in the royal family, and the FFK, no less!
Probably because Wooten used several accounts to spread out the information. He could interact once as himself then again with a different account and then interact as himself with his other account. Thereby giving enough distance to not quite ping and spread the information in different ways. Just a theory I have as to why he doesn’t show as more. I’m assuming Angela was too stupid to have multiple accounts.
I think is the main reason why we see far fewer interactions with the other RRs. They are younger and more familiar with the concept of burner accounts.
I don’t know how much Dan Wootton interacts with these hate accounts. Like if Murky Meg responded to one of his posts, I’m not sure if he would have retweeted it. Quite frankly, someone like him or Piers Morgan doesn’t have to, they are capable of stirring up enough hate and anger among their followers as it is without amplifying hate accounts. (which is what this particular report was tracking.)
Angela Levin, on the other hand, is both so desperate for fame and to be recognized as an expert and hates Meghan SO MUCH that she would retweet anything that made Meghan look evil and Harry incompetent etc.
True Becks. I might need to take a few rhinestones off the top foil tiara haha.
It’s just so hard not to feel like there is such a deeper plan and coordinate effort between some of these parties.
Great Work! After reading still dont understand how he got this data,how he managed to legaly connect those troll accounts and the rota rats. I admit i get zero for I.T anyways.
Twitter is a public forum unless you make your account private. All you need to do is run an analysis of the tweets. (Not saying it easy, cause I’m not an IT person either, lol.)
It’s not that hard to run analysis on tweets. A few years ago, I created a very rudimentary program (not anywhere near BotSentinel’s level however) to analyse tweets.
Hate tweeting pairs well with online shopping apparently
WINNER
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And once one royal reporter amplifies it, the rest follow. “Meghan is awful, says royal expert” articles everywhere. They may not be interacting with the hate accounts directly, but they’re still putting their message out their.
*Adjusts tinfoil tiara*
Please note that I am an absolute sucker for coming up with wild theories about pretty much anything related to social media campaigns and trying to tie them to Putin’s cyber division. (Everyone has a weakness, okay? Cambridge Analytica and the Russian interference with the 2016 election left a very large footprint in my mind.)
One thing that’s always stuck in my mind were remarks from Russian and Ukrainian individuals stating that they weren’t surprised by any of the tactics used against Hilary because Putin’s social media warfare had been extensively beta tested in Russia and Ukraine. The fact that Bot Sentinel could not find a clear political animus for the campaign against Meghan made me think that this is Putin’s people beta testing how to manipulate twitter for their own ends. They succeeded with facebook, but many people have since moved away from it and twitter seems to be the platform of choice. The way twitter works has its own peculiarities for manipulating narratives and keeping people’s attention.
I’m not saying that Putin et al are responsible for the initiation of the smear campaign, but I think they saw an opportunity to do that delicate thing of engaging in key players, stoking the fires, targeting real individuals—who actually hate Meghan— to act of their own will to continue perpetuating certain narratives and amplify the message. The Russian election campaign was super deft at exploiting individuals to do what Putin et al wanted them to do because these individuals already wanted to do it. They just needed to amplify the message. And a lot of the time it seems that Putin et al’s goal isn’t specifically to achieve a certain end— it’s more about destabilizing, damaging a person’s credibility, creating deep divides between factions. Which, if Putin et al are being a enablers, they’re doing a really good job.
*Takes off tinfoil tiara.*
Back to your regular programming of me not being a lunatic. 😝
So, I usually find the responses of “its Russia” to be sort of flippant and oversimplifying the situation (like we can’t really blame Russia for everything wrong in our country, lol) but i can follow what you’re saying, I think. Russia using and manipulating the Meghan hate accounts on twitter (maybe adding some of their own) as a way to almost test Twitter and to practice this smear campaign for something or someone else.
This is a complicated situation bc i think ultimately, the call is coming from inside the house (palace.) and to the extent, if any, that Putin is involved, then it just gets messier. What if Putin knows, for example, how much William is involved in this, and is holding onto that as potential blackmail? There are some rumors about William and being compromised by Russia, now there are always rumors so who knows, everyone could probably be compromised by Russia at this point, but still…..
i do enjoy a good tinfoil tiara theory though so thanks for sharing lol.
Oh most definitely re the palace having the power to stop briefing against the Sussexes. And to be clear, I don’t think Putin et al are acting in concert with anyone. I think they’re just like “here’s a really interesting situation that’s ideal for testing some of the methods we’ve developed, let’s see what happens.” Kind of like, I dunno, those anthropology/sociology studies where people go to an area where the phenomenon they want to research is prevalent, but not common elsewhere.
Meghan’s situation is interesting because 1) she was so thoroughly smeared and so many people believed all that crap the BM wrote about her; 2) she went on Oprah and dropped a bunch of truth bombs that turned the tide of public opinion in her favor; 3) there’s relatively little risk in mounting this campaign, ie she’s not important enough to warrant national security agencies monitoring the activity against her. So how do you amplify (not continue, because the RF and BM do just fine on that front) the existing hatred without getting caught by twitter’s algorithms, and interact with key players?
If you mean by Russia, comrades willy, and Charlie with their associales.
If you mean by Russia, comrades willy, and Charlie with their associales.
Discord and chaos in the west only benefits Putin. I wouldn’t put anything past him, especially a relatively small campaign like this. However a large part of me feels William and Charles were just never going to accept a Black woman.
Completely agree re Charles and William were never going to accept Meghan.
I guess what I’m saying is that the BM and RF created a really solid foundation of existing hatred, and in my tinfoil tiara theory, Putin’s cyber agencies (and to be clear, I don’t mean the man himself, but the organizations under his government) are seeing what they can build off it.
I think we would have gotten more pushback from the palace if they didn’t have their paws on it. So while Putin is a likely player in providing the mechanism, I think its the palace that’s pulling the levers. Especially since there have already been allegations of royal “go-betweens” and Putin.
The royals have SO many skeletons in their closets it wouldn’t take much to gain control over them. I don’t think Putin has it out for Meghan but I could easily see him fucking with William and William becoming so desperate to deflect from his own dirt that he was willing to sacrifice his Harry and Meghan to cover his own ass.
To be clear, I don’t think (until there is more compelling evidence to feed my conspiracy mania lol) that any of the “let’s mount a trolling campaign on twitter” is taking place with input from the RF.
Like I said above, I think Meghan’s situation created a really unique set of circumstance ideal for testing certain methods on how to manipulate twitter. It’s more like the opportunity presented itself and they were like “awesome, let’s see how this plays out in realtime.”
I think if another circumstance arose, they would use that to beta test instead. I think Meghan is ideal for beta testing twitter trolling because people have very strong opinions about her, she’s very high profile, people are likely to retweet stuff about her, there are groups of dedicated fanatics who are for and against her, and there are very vocal and established media figures (eg Angela Levin) who are deeply invested in this.
I agree with this assessment. Putin helped set up the troll farm system and now other people are taking advantage of it. William and Jason Knauf have been very obsessed with going after Meghan and I have no doubt that Knauf helped to arrange this network of hate accounts against her. Kate and her family have attacked more in the traditional way by leaking directly to people like Camilla tominey and giving interviews directly.
You’re not paranoid, this is something that has been documented and reported on sporadically since the 2016 election, but every time it emerges it’s almost immediately memory holed and/or dismissed by the general public. I think people in general always think they “know better” and don’t like to recognize just how easy it is to manipulate public opinion.
Putin’s agenda has been in full swing since Cambridge Analytica (still currently operating as Emerdata) got that Magat elected and Brexit passed. While Facebook and Twitter have shut down some of the more obvious troll farms and disinformation sites, these malevolent players have only gotten better at the game – more fluent, more natural, more responsive, less automated.
What better way to sow discord but by ripping society apart at its seams, infiltrating supposedly innocuous conversations that people have in everyday life? Russian trolls have been found to be heavily involved in amplifying and escalating the conversations surrounding taking a knee for the national anthem, false stories about Parkland students, anything involving football/soccer, any GOP/DEM conflicts, you name it. So a Black American joining the royal family is the perfect opportunity to hit every single one of those triggers – race, class, politics, and Western alliances.
That doesn’t mean that it’s only Putin, but Putin showed bad actors the playbook and now anyone and everyone has taken it and is running with it. This means rival governments, private companies sowing distrust of competitors, glowing reviews on ecommerce sites, rabid fan bases for musicians, celebrities and reality stars no matter how obscure, etc. Private companies, influencers, and governments alike are creating their own realities by planting targeted ideas, themes, or opinions, all while they’re passed off as organic. Have you seen new celebrities who seemingly came out of absolutely nowhere but have millions of rabid followers? It’s all manufactured. Even the host of Prince Harry’s panel was susceptible to this; he commented about “I saw haters and supporters in the replies” – from the Bot Sentinel reports we know that those supposed organic hateful opinions are actually a coordinated campaign, but other people see those replies and just internalize it and move on, and over time it impacts their overall viewpoints.
+1
You’re right, I keep forgetting that reports come out periodically about how so much controversy and rage is manufactured. (*Side eyes current vaccine “discussion.”) And then the reports kind of go away and people continue with business as usual. The cumulative effect and perception of majority opinion is so insidious and damaging. Ugh.
I can see this especially because nothing has so divided people as a Black woman marrying into the royal family. Putin just needed to exploit those already existing fears.
To be clear, though, just like Republicans in the US accepted Putin’s help and gave him data to help him ruin Hillary’s chances, I am positive the royal family, Cambridges specifically, are behind this and someone in their camp dined with someone in Putin’s camp, just like Trump campaign with Russian intelligence hacks/spies.
So, Putin helps evil people do their worst. The Cambridges will probably never be brought down directly, and due to propaganda in UK even their reputations will hardly suffer. But people who work for them will be burned badly. And we will all know who directed this hate.
i’d buy it.
So when will the palaces announce that they are conducting an internal investigation into the ongoing targeted harassment of a member of their family? I won’t hold my breath.
I believe this Royal internal investigation is ongoing but the public will never hear about. The Palace(s) will get rid of the “trouble makers” they cannot control then further engage the controllable “trouble makers” to more of their dirty work.
If they announced that “bullying” investigation then why keep this a secret since there is already speculation out there? I don’t believe they are investigating anything; more likely just holding their breath and hoping it goes away. Time for a new sparkly dress for Kate!
Baytampabay, did you happen to see the documentary that was on MSNBC over the weekend, explaining how that one Trump campaign event ended up at Four Seasons landscaping company and not the Four Seasons hotel? At the beginning, they explained that the entire thing was unnecessary, that they were literally making up events like that solely to keep Rudy Giuliani busy, because Trump’s handlers knew he was a loose cannon and they didn’t want him to have any free time to go rogue and say all sorts of stuff he should not be saying on tv. The whole thing was a farce, to keep him occupied, like a child.
Anyway my point with all of this lol, is that I think the palace would actually have to keep a tighter leash on the “troublemakers,” because if they’re let loose, who knows what might happen. So they’ll do whatever they have to in order to keep those people close and in line, monitoring them, imo. They’re the ones who created this circus and now they’re going to have to pay a price if they want to keep it from getting out to the public. Which might mean babysitting and coddling a bunch of staffers they have no use for, but can’t risk letting go of.
I really hope Harry calls out Angela Levine by name for all of her hate. The absolute lies and fiction she spreads about Meghan not only on Twitter but while being interviewed by the British morning/news shows is nuts. That’s why I want Harry to use her name and say it loud and make a fuss. She seems like the type that will be easily scared and run away if Harry calls her out.
She also incites hate against Meghan’s mother too by repeating the lies of the derangers, as in, “My God, is this true?” All the while knowing Doria was never in jail. It’s sickening.
The other thing is the fake stories about the “extra” husband.
Every day it makes more and more sense that Harry and Meghan walked away from this. I’d have done it to live in a split-level in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Amen. A trailer park in the middle of tornado alley is preferable to this toxic family and the royal reporters.
I am surprised that things like Camilla Tomilly and Rotten Dan Becky English aren’t mentioned. I find it hard to believe that these absolutely hateful racist vile people aren’t on this list.
They’re probably just better at covering their tracks.
They have burner accounts and can hide their tracks better.
I love that now there’s actual evidence to support what many Sussex supporters long knew. And I love that because of Bot sentinel it’s not just fans being crazy but it’s actually now in print.
We also know Jason Knauf, William, and the palace are involved but we need actual evidence tying them together. I get the sense that Buzz feeds royal reporters know there is something bigger going on and are willing to report it but we need evidence! I really hope there is someone in the palace that was friendly with Harry and Meghan collecting behind the scenes.
We may never get a smoking gun but at least its out there in the universe that this is manufactured hate. And yes I know manufactured hate has real consequences and we still need to shut it down.
Can someone please drop some names that hasn’t been mentioned in the list, as many as you know
Thanks 😊
The level of hate here is just sickening. This is probably the tip of the iceberg, I suspect this is the beginning of the road to who is responsible for this unwarranted hate campaign.
Has anyone bothered to check if thaw dreadful Katie Hind has any connections to the racist Twitter accounts?
I guess we can file this under facts that are unsurprising but still infuriating.
I hope that Meghan is surrounded by lots of love, support and whatever she needs. I think that her, Harry and (to a lesser extent) the public were essentially gaslit by major British media outlets. Like that classic tactic of I’m not racist but… followed by racist dog whistles. It’s a disgusting example of misogynoir. Moving out of the UK always felt like the most reasonable step to protect their safety. That’s even more clear now with information like this report.
I’m not big on conspiracy theories… but I genuinely think Meghans life would be at risk if her & Harry continued living in his familial properties at the UK. I can totally understand why he was afraid she was going to die. And why he spoke about how the media’s treatment of her brought back painful memories of his mother death.
Her life, Harry’s life, and the lives of their children would have been at risk. There are people in jail for threatening Harry. And you have assholes like Mike Tindall talking about wanting to beat Harry up, and saying that the royals sit around talking shit about Harry. I think William was close to a “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest” moment, but unlike Henry 2 with Thomas a Becket, William would not have been too sad if people took him up on the challenge. I think it would get that bad.
It is gaslighting. And sometimes just name calling.
The BRF and BM should be sweating. If the investigation gets to a point that someone needs to catch a charge it’s going to be mesdy.
Reporters covering a beat need to follow all sorts of accounts, just following an account isn’t necessarily an issue. They need to know what’s out there. But, interacting with and amplifying hateful messages needs to be grounds for swift punishment. Will we see any of these reporters removed from the rota? That’s what need to happen.
But it won’t.
They won’t be removed from the rota no, but if this picks up enough steam, it could curtail a lot of opportunities regarding US appearances. And less opportunities means less money.
There is no justifiable reason for them to be following these racist, hate-filled, harassing accounts. It isn’t ‘news’, they don’t need to ‘see what is out there’ on these feeds.
What does “interacting with” mean in a social media context, exactly? Following? Retweeting? Endorsing? Replying? I’m not on twitter, so please forgive me for the dumb question.
I’m interested to see if any of the reporters named will react to this report (like unfollowing or something), but honestly, so long as they keep getting called in as “royal experts” by mainstream media, I think they won’t see a need to change.
following, retweeting, endorsing, replying, and writing hate-filled stories based on the lies and rumours on these hater accounts.
yankee wally is still on twitter. she is @ShylocksSister.
Crazy question:
Is there anything that BotSentinel could do with the IP data from the troll comments here on Celebitchy? I remember you guys talking about getting suspicious troll activity on your podcast. I suspect that’s the sort of information he wouldn’t be able to get just from Twitter.