Five accounts dedicated to harassing Markle raked in a combined $42,000 per monthm a new investigation found.
A new investigation by Bot Sentinel the same research group that unearthed rampant pro-Johnny Depp harassment campaigns in July offered similarly jarring revelations this week: At least two dozen YouTube channels with flagrant policy violations were allowed to continue posting without any consequence from YouTube moderators and all while still getting paid. Among the most common subject matter of their videos were misogynist lies and attacks on women like Amber Heard and Meghan Markle, who have both been spoken extensively about the heavy toll of online abuse on their well being. Thousands of videos threatening and making defamatory claims about Heard and Markle in particular have remained live, despite violating YouTubes policies and theres evidence the video platform itself profits from this hate.
YouTube says it prohibits malicious insults targeting famous or identifiable individuals. Yet Bot Sentinel estimates that five accounts focused singularly on attacking Markle received a total of $42,000 in monthly payments with ad profits shared with YouTube. At the height of the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Heard, one account made over 128 videos about Heard that violated this policy and also made defamatory claims about her.
Bot Sentinel identified one case of a YouTuber who said in his videos that Markle deserves to be strangled to death and said as recently as Monday that Markle and her husband Prince Harry, should be shot at dawn no action has been taken, despite how Bot Sentinels founder Christopher Bouzy told Rolling Stone he’d personally reported these videos.
A lot of these folks would not do what they are doing if YouTube was not rewarding them. And lets be clear here they are rewarding them Bouzy said. When you allow these folks to monetize this content and you are the company that is paying them, at the end of the day you are pretty much facilitating the harassment the vitriol that we are currently seeing.
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