Toxic Fandom or Harassment for Profit?
What do Meghan Markle, Olivia Wilde, and Amber Heard have in common? They’ve all recently received an overwhelming amount of sexist and, in Markle’s case, racist media coverage resulting in colossal amounts of online harassment. The sustained abuse has resulted in career damage, trauma, mental health struggles, and arguably losing a lawsuit. What else do these women have in common? Far-right media outlets and influencers exploit and abuse them online for clicks, clout, and cash.
This week Bot Sentinel released a new report that found “at least two dozen YouTube channels with “flagrant” policy violations were allowed to continue posting without censure from YouTube moderators. Even more alarming: they’re still getting paid.” The most common subject matter of these channels is misogynist disinformation and attacks on women like Markle and Heard. The report goes on to estimate that just five YouTube channels devoted solely to the hate and harassment of Markle bring in a combined $42,000 a month!
Bot Sentinel has tracked hatred against Heard and Markle for a while now and has released previous research on accounts targeting both women. It also has a publicly available dashboard tracking single-purpose hate Twitter accounts targeting Markle and her husband and Heard. As founder Christopher Bouzy told Rolling Stone: “YouTube is to blame. A lot of these folks…
