Monetized Hate Campaign Against Meghan Markle With $3.48 Million YouTube Earnings Exposed

New details about troll accounts used to disparage Meghan Markle have emerged.

Data analytics provider Bot Sentinel released a report Thursday exposing a monetized hate campaign against the Duchess of Sussex. It showed how "single-purpose hate accounts have turned targeted harassment and coordinated hate campaigns into a lucrative hate-for-profit enterprise."

"We published our report on the coordinated hate campaign targeting Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex. We illustrate the conspiracy, and we believe it is the most comprehensive and damning report on this topic," Christopher Bouzy, founder and CEO of Bot Sentinel, noted in a tweet.

The report revealed that a network of YouTube channels with a combined 497 million views and $3.48 million YouTube earnings are being used to spread hate against Markle on social media. The three most successful channels — YankeeWally, MurkyMeg and According2taz — have a total of more than 70 million views and $494,730 earnings.

According to the report, the three channels have coordinated their efforts on various social media websites, including Twitter, to cultivate a following by circulating conspiracy theories and disinformation about Prince Harry and Markle that were all created in the MeWe group.

Previously, Bot Sentinel found that 83 anti-Markle accounts were responsible for 70% of the malicious comments about the Duchess of Sussex on Twitter.

"Their efforts allowed them to interact with journalists and royal experts, who then, in some circumstances, amplified the falsehoods. The women leveraged their Twitter popularity to funnel their followers to their YouTube channels, where they would discuss the conspiracy theories they helped to manufacture," the report explained.

While both YankeeWally and MurkyMeg have been suspended on Twitter, According2taz and several other accounts remain active. Bot Sentinel learned that admins of these accounts are using tactics to avoid detection and suspension, including dismissing their claims as parodies or using racist coded language about the Duchess of Sussex.

"We also observed several accounts either lock or completely deactivate their profiles to preserve their accounts," the report said further.

Prince Harry and Markle have been vocal about how online hate affected them, especially before they stepped down as senior royals in March 2020. In an October 2020 episode of the "Teenager Therapy" podcast, Markle opened up about the hate campaign against her, saying, "I'm told that, in 2019, I was the most trolled person in the entire world, male or female."

"Now, eight months of that, I wasn't even visible. I was on maternity leave or with a baby. But what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it's almost unsurvivable. That's so big you can't even think about what that feels like," she said.