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Conspiracies about the welfare of the Princess of Wales have been fuelled in part by inauthentic social media accounts, i analysis shows.
On Monday, it was claimed hostile states may be behind some of the conspiracies after Kate, 42, revealed last week that she has been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing a course of preventative chemotherapy.
In her video address on Friday, she requested “space and privacy” while she completes her treatment. The royal had been out of the public eye since undergoing major abdominal surgery in January, after which the cancer was found.
During this step back from public duties, conspiracies have spread on social media about her welfare and her whereabouts.
Despite Kate’s revelation concerning her health and the debunking of a large number of these conspiracies, disinformation around the princess continues to swirl online.
Who is behind the online rumours?
The majority of people posting about Kate appear to be people who are fascinated with what they believe are mysterious circumstances around the Royal’s medical situation. Some are online figures known for pursuing a “controversies for clicks” social media strategy, others are just ordinary individuals.
However, a report in the Telegraph claims government sources believe China, Russia and Iran could be behind the harmful online rumours in an attempt to sow tensions in the UK.
The article also referenced a network of inauthentic social media accounts on X, formerly Twitter, which were linked to Russian conspiracy theories and focused on supporting Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex.
Inauthentic behaviour online is when an account or accounts post in a way that a normal person would not, for example, publishing a huge number of posts in a short period of time.
However, i can reveal that some social media accounts highlighted in the report, published five years ago by communications agency 89up, are no longer active. The company said the profiles had been “suspended/deleted by X” and that they had not revisited the research since it was published in 2019.
And what does the open-source evidence tell us?
i identified strings of inauthentic behaviour relating to the Princess of Wales on X in the past week. This is where the same phrases are published by different accounts, either with posts being identical or having small differences.
This can be the hallmark of a social media bot – a profile that is designed to run automated tasks, such as to publish posts on to social media at different times.
It can also be a sign of “content farming”, which is when real people (or sometimes bots as well) jump on to online trends in an attempt to build their social media account by gaining followers or other engagement. Building an audience like this means a profile can then be sold for money or hired to post about other topics – such as a product for sale or to push a view point.
Four typical “copy and paste” examples were analysed, although there are many more online.
“Why do these big media channels want to make us believe these are kate and william? #RoyalAnnouncement #katemiddelton #RoyalAnnouncement #KateMiddletonEXPOSED #KingCharles #ROSE,” is one of the examples.
When one of these set phrases is searched on the platform, a large number of posts using the exact wording published from different accounts is shown one after another.
What were the profiles like?
A number of accounts posting this phrase and hashtags were picked by i at random and analysed.
The reviewed profiles either are or had been designed to look like a person from south-east Asia (although this is not true of all accounts seen publishing “copy and paste” posts).
They posted a lot about Indian politics, which may be expected. However, a large number of sophisticated bot networks that focus on Indian politics have been uncovered in the past few years.
Pro-Russian posts were also made by the accounts over a long period of time, most recently expressing sympathy in the wake of the terror attack in Moscow where at least 137 people were killed.
None of the accounts had a history of posting about the British Royal Family until the conspiracies about Kate began to circulate.
Some of the posts about the Princess of Wales appeared to have unusual hashtags, using both #RoyalFamily and #Moscow in the same post despite there being no reference to Russia in the text, images or videos shared.
Hashtags are used to direct people’s attention to conversations around topics, so if someone was looking for a conspiratorial post about the Royal Family, they may then click on the hashtag about #Moscow to view posts about the Russian capital.
Nearly all the profiles had paid a “verified” blue tick on their profile, meaning they have paid for X premium. As part of that, a profile must meets the platform’s eligibility requirements which in theory weeds out inauthentic behaviour.
Are these bot accounts?
It is not possible to confirm whether the accounts reviewed by i are bot accounts or content farm accounts, but they do display all the hallmarks of typical inauthentic accounts.
As for whether they are accounts backed by hostile states, such as Russia or China, it is not possible to tell. A profile may post positive or negative things about different countries for a number of reasons.
The Home Office and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology were approached for comment.
Who is behind the bots?
Anytime something big is happening on social media, you can bet bots will turn up – as sure as ants at a picnic.
Who is behind them is harder to say. Sometimes the reality is as simple as people looking to jump on a bandwagon to be part of an online “moment” or to try to get a slice of the likes, shares and follows up for grabs.
The claim that the hand of a hostile state actor may be in play shouldn’t be discounted. A new podcast from Tortoise, Who Trolled Amber?, which looks at the online attacks levied against Hollywood actress Amber Heard during her court battle with A-List actor Johnny Depp, presented compelling evidence that some of the online hate may have been the product of a Saudi Arabian-funded bot farm.
However, getting to the bottom of who is behind bot and content farms is notoriously difficult – and is something that has been made harder thanks to Elon Musk. The owner of X changed the rules by which researchers were allowed to collect data from the social media platform seemingly always at the heart of stories about online harms. It means that excellent tools such as the Botometer, that was able to quickly provide a guide on how suspicious an account was, are no longer able to work on the platform.
Regardless of who is behind the inauthentic accounts feeding into the continuing Kate conspiracies, the profiles all have one thing in common: They spread harm and capitalise on distrust in an era where people are looking to try to make their own minds up about what they read.
By Sanya Burgess
