Meghan fans fume as report says Duchess was target of ‘racist’ Twitter campaign

Fans of Meghan Markle are fuming after a new report revealed that she and Prince Harry have been victims of a coordinated 'racist' hate campaign on Twitter.

The report released yesterday by Bot Sentinel, a Twitter analytics provider, gives credence to Duchess' claim last year that she was the "most trolled person" on the planet.

Bot Sentinel's analysis suggested that just 83 Twitter accounts with a combined 187,000 followers were behind 70% of the fiercely anti-Sussex tweets.

It also noted that Meghan was the primary target with 80% of the harassment aimed at her.

Worryingly, many of the tweets used 'coded racist language', as per the report which put the potential reach of these troll accounts at 17 million users.

Fans of the Sussexes have expressed their anger on Twitter and called for the social media giant to do something about the abuse.

"It is absolutely wrong that under 100 accounts should be able to disseminate the volume of hatred and abusive trolling on twitter," said one person.

"The fact that Twitter hasn’t put a stop to it is mind-boggling.

"IP bans would fix this problem almost entirely."

Another chimed: "And when she said she was the most trolled person in the world, royal reporters thought she was dramatic."

A third added: "This report confirms that attacks on M[eghan] were intentional and strategical.

"This is an astronomical problem which Twitter must solve. Without delay or excuses."

The report described the way in which the troll accounts interreacted with each other as not "organic", suggesting that the abuse was coordinated.

Moreover, according to Bot Sentinel chief executive Christopher Bouzy, there was "very little evidence" that bots were responsible for the harassment.

He has also said that those behind the accounts were extremely social media savvy and often fiddled with their account settings to avoid detection.

As a result of the human coordination implied by the report, people have speculated about what could be behind the attack – with money being the most common conclusion.

One Twitter user said: "It’s the fact that it was planned, navigated and calculated… possibly paid for, that is most alarming."

"Which country are they from and is there any way of finding out who's paying them?" asked another.

Since the release of the report four of the troll accounts have been banned according to a Twitter spokesperson.

However, they added that Twitter found no evidence of "widespread coordination, the use of multiple accounts by single people, or other platform manipulation tactics".

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