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Old April 18th, 2019 #13
Stewart Meadows
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Join Date: May 2018
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Quote:
Inside The Racist Online Attacks On Meghan Markle


NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Max Foster, royal correspondent and anchor at CNN, about his reporting on racist and sexist attacks against Meghan Markle.
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GARCIA-NAVARRO: So when you looked at some of these accounts, especially on Twitter, what did you see? What did you find?

FOSTER: Well, what we found was that we took 5,000 tweets which contained anti-Meghan hashtags. We found that 20 accounts were driving 70 percent of the coverage. We don't know how many people were behind those accounts. We don't think they are bots because they all seem quite tailored, but they're causing a lot of damage.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: What has been the reaction from the palace and tech companies?

FOSTER: Instagram has helped them with a tool, which allows them to preblock certain phrases, certain images. So they're working with social media companies. And I think they're quite uncomfortable with it because they didn't want to get involved in the moderation to the extent that they are. They knew there would be accusations that they're trying to just have positive comments. But I think it got to the point where they just had enough.
(...)
Certain groups are using - not just making hashtags but also some political hashtags as well. One of them was Brexit. That turned up quite a lot. Another one was MAGA - Make America Great Again - that turned up a lot. I will say that one thing at the forefront of palace minds right now is a case from the end of last year, where there was an image that was circulated on social media showing Prince Harry calling for him to be shot because he was a race traitor for marrying Meghan Markle.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Wow...

FOSTER: Now, a BBC investigation suggested that at the center of this case is a neo-Nazi group in the U.K. linked with a U.S. neo-Nazi group. I mean, we can't go into too much detail because it's an ongoing investigation, but their fear certainly is that this type of trolling can create a permissive environment. Someone carried out a violent threat. And that's what they're most concerned about right now, and they don't want to give them any sort of platform.
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/10/70198...=1555627492809