Skip to main content

The British royal family is taking on the Twitter trolls

Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Clive Mason/Getty Images

The British royals have had enough of the Twitter trolls, and they have decided to fight back.

Evidently fed up with abuse targeting members of the royal household, the family’s social media team this week responded with a set of “social media community guidelines” that could see the worst offenders reported to the police.

The Windsors have a number of Twitter accounts, including @royalfamily with 3.9 million followers and @kensingtonroyal with 1.7 million followers. The equivalent Instagram accounts have 4.5 million and 7.1 million followers, respectively.

Reports suggest that in the last year or so, trolls have been increasingly targeting Duchesses Kate and Meghan, prompting the royal family to act.

It said it was putting the guidelines in place “to help create a safe environment” across its social media channels.

“We ask that anyone engaging with our social media channels shows courtesy, kindness and respect for all other members of our social media communities,” the online message said.

The message listed various rules for anyone intending to leave comments on its posts, insisting that contributors should never be “defamatory of any person, deceive others, be obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful, inflammatory or promote sexually explicit material or violence.”

It also warned against “discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age,” adding that it has the right to “hide or delete comments made on our channels, as well as block users who do not follow these guidelines.”

The royal household’s social media team said that in the worst cases, it would report the matter to law enforcement for investigation.

While those in charge of the royals’ social media output have no doubt already been willing to report offensive material to the police, the fact that they felt the need to state its position publicly suggests the frequency of attacks on the family via social media is on the rise.

According to Sky News, much of the recent abuse has been aimed at the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex, with “a number of royal ‘fans’ abusing each other under the guise of being ‘Team Meghan’ or ‘Team Kate.’”

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Twitter takes down a meme tweeted by Trump for copyright infringement
Trump Twitter

Twitter has pulled a picture shared by President Donald Trump for copyright infringement. The tweet, which at the time of writing was liked by more than 300,000 people, featured a photograph taken by Damon Winter, a Pulitzer-Prize winning photographer, for a New York Times piece from 2015.

The president, however, had turned the photo into a meme by slapping on a caption: “In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.” While the original tweet has been allowed to stay up, Twitter has censored the media with an overlaid error that reads: “This image has been removed in response to a report by the copyright owner.”

Read more
Twitter takes down Trump’s doctored CNN video over copyright issues
Trump Twitter

Twitter has taken down a doctored CNN video tweeted by President Donald Trump for copyright infringement. It had initially only flagged it as "manipulated media."

The move comes after Jukin Media, a content firm that owns the distribution license for the footage that the Trump administration had unlawfully used, submitted a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) copyright takedown notice on behalf of the video's creator. Twitter confirmed with Digital Trends that the President's tweet "has been actioned due to a DMCA notice from a rights holder."

Read more
Elon Musk is taking a Twitter break, but why is a mystery
elon musk stylized image

Elon Musk surprised his 35 million Twitter followers on Monday night when he announced he was taking a break from the platform.

The message was short and sweet, and offered no explanation as to why he’d decided to step back from the microblogging site, or when he might be back.

Read more