Royal Family Issues Social Media Guidelines After ‘Abusive, Hateful’ Comments About Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle

No bullies allowed! Following a rise in hateful comments written on social media about Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, the British royal family released a set of guidelines on Monday, March 3 for “anyone engaging with our social media channels,” banning “obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful” and discriminatory posts.

In an effort to increase “courtesy, kindness and respect” across social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, Kensington Palace is implementing this protocol to limit the number of hurtful comments made about the pregnant Duchess of Sussex, 37, and the Duchess of Cambridge, also 37, after the two women recently became the subject of online abuse.

In order to control the amount of sexist and racist remarks, the royal family said that they will be deleting derogatory comments, blocking disrespectful users and reporting any foul and dangerous contributions to the police. Kensington Palace will take any of these actions if a user does not meet their guidelines, which also state that comments “must not be off-topic, irrelevant or unintelligible.” The purpose of these rules is to “help create a safe environment” for everyone on the internet, the statement said.

These new guidelines come just weeks after Kensington Palace revealed that royal staff has reportedly been spending a lot of time managing negative comments being said online about the two royal beauties. “The palace has always monitored comments, but it’s a hugely time-consuming thing,” an insider told Hello! magazine in late January. “They can block certain words, but some of it is quite serious.”

According to a source, “A lot of hours are being spent reviewing old material and moderating comments under posts.” And, supposedly, “there were two or three that were violent threats” among hundreds of thousands of comments posted online about Kate and Meg. The royal insider even insisted that the damaging comments could be somewhat responsible for the duchesses’ alleged feud.

“It follows a Kate vs Meghan narrative and some of the worst stuff is between Kate fans and Meghan fans,” the source dished. “Arguments about who looks more appropriate, for example, that turn into personal attacks on other users. It’s creating a supercharged atmosphere and everyone can join in, but what are the consequences of this?” At least now, thanks to the royal family’s guidelines, there will be some type of consequence!