Meghan Markle trolls are earning thousands via YouTube advertising, which then acts as an incentive to “continue creating more hate-filled content.”
via: Complex
Newsweek reports Bot Sentinel has been investigating a network of hate targeting the Duchess of Sussex, which they claim are “earning thousands via YouTube advertising, which then acts as an incentive to continue creating more hate-filled content.”
“I think it’s unconscionable and abhorrent that people are earning thousands of dollars each month from videos created to spread hate, and platforms like YouTube are incentivizing these people to continue creating more hate-filled content,” Bot Sentinel founder Christopher Bouzy told Newsweek.
After looking at Twitter trends in October, Bot Sentinel discovered that 70 percent of hate-filled content targeting Meghan was produced by a core of 55 troll accounts. Bouzy says one account, Yankee Wally, makes $3,300-a-month in ad revenue.
“Our research revealed these accounts were brazenly coordinating on the platform, and at least one account was openly recruiting people to join their hate initiative on Twitter,” Bot Sentinel said.
The data analysis firm added, “We determined Twitter had previously suspended 40 percent of the primary accounts, and these accounts were employing tactics to avoid suspension. Some put ‘parody’ in their profiles, although it wasn’t a parody account. Others would use racist coded language about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, to avoid detection.”
Amnesty International reported that while all women are targets of online abuse and violence, women of color were 34 percent more likely to be mentioned in ‘abusive or problematic’ tweets than white women. “Further, Black women were 84 percent more likely than white women to be mentioned in such tweets.”
