Millions saw Princess ‘revictimised by inhumane trolls’ hateful campaign’

Social media conspiracy theorists doubling down after announcement, says online extremism expert

THE Princess of Wales has been “revictimised” by social media trolls who have now publicly blamed her for not disclosing her cancer diagnosis to them sooner, a leading expert in countering online extremism has said.

Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, said conspiracy theories about the Princess had been amplified on social media platforms to reach “millions and millions of people”.

Even after she aired her video explaining that she was undergoing preventive chemotherapy for cancer, social media users further accused her of causing such theories to spread by not speaking out sooner.

In fact, the Princess of Wales timed her message around the welfare of her three young children, to give them time to process news of their mother’s condition away from the public discourse. While the children have known about their mother’s health issues, privately, for some time the Princess chose to release the video at the start of the Easter school holidays so they could retreat from the public eye.

Mr Ahmed, speaking on the BBC1 television programme Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, criticised the response on social media.

“When you’ve got a young lady, the Princess of Wales, who has suffered a medical emergency, you see people flooding in with conspiracy theories, you see them being amplified on social media platforms and pushed to millions and millions of people,” he said.

“What really, I think, annoyed me was seeing that she was then being revictimised by being blamed for not having come out immediately. Of course a family needs to have its time and its privacy.

Social media has made us behave inhumanely, he added, “forcing people to talk about things that can be very deeply personal. And also seeing, of course, the impact of that on our society, how quickly it was picked up by millions of people, and how much it’s done damage to the Royal family.”

Speaking on the same programme, Paddy Harverson, the former palace adviser, said the speculation and pressure around the Princess of Wales’s health and whereabouts had been “the worst I’ve ever seen”.

Mr Harverson, the official spokesman for the King and Prince William during the early years of his relationship with the Princess of Wales, said social and mainstream media “feeds off itself ”.

He added: “It’s a sort of permanent

‘Social media has forced people to talk about deeply personal things’

‘They attacked her for not having come out straight away’

doom loop and it was the worst I’ve ever seen.”

He added that it had taken time for the Royal family to come to terms with the Princess’s diagnosis. “I’m absolutely convinced that if we hadn’t had all the madness and social media, if we hadn’t had the Mother’s Day photo mistake, they would have still done it like this,” he said of Friday’s video statement.

Palace sources hope that social media firms may, after the furore, tighten up systems that allow lies and conspiracy theories to spread unchecked.

Linda Yaccarino, the chief executive of X, described the Princess’s video as a “brave message delivered by Princess Kate with her signature grace” in a post accompanied by a heart emoji.

“Her request for privacy, to protect her children and allow her to move forward (without endless speculation) seems like a reasonable request to respect,” she said.

One aide said the message had been noted as “really interesting”, adding: “If it prompts social media platforms to look at this issue, it could be one positive out of a negative.”

The Prince of Wales took on the digital technology giants in 2018 when he asked them to take the damaging side of social media more seriously.

In the past, he has focused on the dangers it poses to young people and the proliferation of fake news posts around the world.

In 2018, in a speech at the BBC as part of an update on his Cyberbullying Taskforce, Prince William condemned the “defensive” attitude of social media firms that refused to accept their role in the spread of hate speech, fake news and the torment of young people in their own homes.

“I am very concerned, though, that on every challenge they face – fake news, extremism, polarisation, hate speech, trolling, mental health, privacy, and bullying – our tech leaders seem to be on the back foot,” he said at the time.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have also attempted to tackle online disinformation and bullying in their own way.

Prince Harry has been commissioned to take on a role dealing with information disorder at the Aspen Institute, a US think tank. He has identified a “misand disinformation crisis” as a global humanitarian issue and called for a clampdown on super-spreaders of false content.

The Duchess of Sussex, speaking earlier this month on a panel about women in the media, has called on unnamed female executives in tech to do more to block online hate.

“There are a lot of women at the highest executive level who are great champions of women and great philanthropists, and they are working in these spaces, and yet they’re allowing this kind of behaviour to run rampant,” she said.

‘If it makes social media platforms look at this issue, it may be a positive out of a negative’ ‘Top female executives are allowing this kind of behaviour to run rampant’