Have you criticized Meghan Markle? Somebody wants you to be afraid

"We reserve the right to send any comments we deem appropriate to law enforcement authorities for investigation as we feel necessary or is required by law.”

This was the final line of the British Royal Family's new social media policy, released on March 4, 2019.

The policy supposedly guards against "obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful, inflammatory" comments against any member of the Royal Family - but everyone knows that this is really about Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex.

After all, other family members have been putting up with nasty gossip for years without public complaint.

Poor Camilla has persistently been called "The Rottweiler" (reportedly Diana gave her the name) and Kate is known around the world as "Waity Kaity" because of her long engagement and "Duchess Dolittle" because of her long maternity leaves. These women have survived.

Only Meghan seems to need special protection.

The 'kindness' clue

Not only do I believe that Meg is behind the new social media policy - I believe she wrote the policy herself, and that it is part of a larger campaign of intimidation.

The grandiose tone of the social media policy reflects Meghan's usual writing style. It also contains one of her favorite words, kindness. "We ask that anyone engaging with our social media channels shows courtesy and kindness."

The word kindness appears repeatedly in her writing for her now-deleted blog Tig, in her pseudo-anonymous messages to the blogger Skippy, in the WriteLife Twitter feed often assumed to be run by Meghan, and even in the speech she wrote for Prince Harry to deliver on WE Day last week. "Be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves."

And hey, if you're not kind, we'll call in the cops.

Overspending and protocol breaks

Generally, personal opinions about public figures are not punishable in countries that protect freedom of speech.

While specific threats of violence will get you in trouble - even Madonna got a visit from the Secret Service when she publicly fantasized about taking out the Trump White House - threats are not common in online comments about the British Royal Family, with very few exceptions.

(In fact, those exceptions have often been Meghan's fans, wishing disaster on the three young Cambridge children so Meghan could be crowned Queen.)

Most of the time, the criticism of the Duchess of Sussex focuses on her overspending on fashion and travel, on her messy hair and ill-fitting out-of-season clothing, on her inability to keep staff, or on her barging in front of her husband at formal events and other breaks with Royal protocol.

I haven't seen anyone hoping for her demise. Her harshest critics simply suggest that she leave Britain, and maybe take Prince Harry along with her.

Criticism reframed as hate speech

But Meghan doesn't want criticism, which she reframes as hate speech.

Meg was certainly behind the doxxing of several elderly bloggers who were critical of her, and I know other bloggers have taken measures that have limited their audience reach in order to lower their chances of being doxxed too.

This week several Royal Forums said they would no longer host threads about Harry and Meghan, or would host them only in protected spaces.

And on Saturday a report emerged of "co-ordinated attacks" being made on royal journalists writing negative stories about Meghan, with one reporter targeted with more than 7000 Tweets.

This is a campaign of intimidation.

Bringing in traditional media

It's not just social media that have been swept up in the campaign to quell any criticism of the Duchess of Sussex. 

Traditional media like People Magazine, Hello, Cosmopolitan, People, the Daily Beast, Harpers' Bazaar, and Vogue have all repeatedly run flattering pieces about Meghan, with the latter two surprisingly forgiving of Meghan's many fashion missteps. 

This suggests the involvement of a high-level PR agency, which can exchange positive articles about Meghan for access to other celebrities or simply cold cash. (Most glossy magazines have been struggling with profitability for years.)

But the most surprising media coup was the CNN story.

The CNN Alert

CNN is no longer the leading news network it was in the glory days of the early 1990s; internationally it has been outpaced by the BBC, and even in the US it is the third-place news network behind right-wing Fox News and left-wing MSNBC.

But it still has some cachet, and when it ran both an on-air and online story this weekend headlined Royal Family: Racist Online Abuse Puts Palace On Alert, that got attention. 

All fiction that the social media policy was designed to protect all of the royals was dropped. Duchess Meghan is being targeted!  CNN even sent out an email alert to what must be tens of thousands of followers. 

People who care about racism took notice: Possible presidential candidate Stacey Abrams and Broadway star Audra McDonald spoke out for Meghan. The story was even picked up by National Public Radio, the voice of the American establishment chattering class.

Whose side are you on?

But when you look at it closely, the story crumbles. Twenty accounts were responsible for 70% of 5000 tweets using the most common anti-Meghan hashtags. So what? 20 nutcases like to use the same hashtags. Big deal. 

Furthermore the organization that did the survey, the left-wing advocacy group Hope Not Hate, was forced to apologize after mucking up a similar survey of Tweets in the case of murdered MP Jo Cox.

But not many people take the time to look that deep. 

The obvious takeaway was: The racists are after Meghan! And the message behind it was more sinister: Whose side are you on?

If you're not with Meg, you're against Meg. And if you're against Meg, you're a racist. And we will expose you whether you like it or not. 

A massive PR campaign

Social media, establishment media, advocacy groups: this is a massive PR campaign, carried out by the highest level of PR professionals.

And it is expensive. Someone is paying for this who is not Meghan Markle, and they are paying a lot. Nine figures minimum, perhaps 10 figures.

Meg doesn't have that kind of money, and neither Harry nor Charles has that much cash on hand. Their wealth is in property, art, and jewellery, not liquid assets.

Follow the Bots

In her Daily Telegraph story on Saturday, reporters Camilla Tominey and Hannah Furness report that "suspicious 'bot-like Twitter accounts and handles linked to Russian conspiracy theories have been 'obsessively' tweeting" positive remarks about the Duchess of Sussex, an investigation has found.

The article goes on to state that "analysis of accounts interconnected into a 'Meghan Markle' Twitter community found around 1000 'highly-connected' accounts which have tweeted more than two and a half million times since September."

"One account with the second highest number of pro-Meghan followers, which also tweets about US politics from a pro-Democratic perspective, appears to indicate 'bot-like activity' while the fourth most shared account frequently tweets from Russia Today.'

Stranger than fiction. Who's paying for bots?

Follow the bots and you might find the source of the funding for the entire campaign.

A comment on the March 9 Daily Telegraph article

What's going on?

The bigger question, of course, it's what's going on here?

If this is just a case of Meg having her feelings hurt by mean words from anonymous strangers, wouldn't it just be easier for her to take some time out of the spotlight and wait until the herd had moved on? 

After all, Sophie Wessex also had a bumpy start with the Royal Family, but she's now one of its most popular members. Sometimes acceptance takes time.

Or is there some greater motivation behind all this than just the Duchess of Sussex's vanity?