I kept seeing references to this on my TL yesterday, but I didn’t realize that the “ground zero” point of contention was a Hello Magazine article. Hello got an exclusive, of sorts: Kensington Palace is super-worried that BOTH duchesses are being victimized by online trolls and haters. Both Sidesism: Duchess Kate and Duchess Meghan are being equally hated-on, okay? To be fair, the Duchess of Cambridge has received criticism over the years for various things and there are absolutely “haters” dedicated to spreading conspiracies and shade about her every move. But to be fair, the UK media has also been 100% complicit in whitewashing the narratives around Kate, in elevating her and pouring sugar over her every move. Meanwhile, the Duchess of Sussex has been victimized by racist trolls who take their cues from the same UK media. But sure, both sides.

Staff at Kensington Palace reportedly spend “a lot of hours” managing negative comments online aimed at Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle. Social media backlash has increased in recent months, ranging from pitting the royal sisters-in-law against each other to “violent threats,” a source tells Hello! magazine.

“The Palace has always monitored comments, but it’s a hugely time consuming thing,” the insider said. “They can block certain words, but some of it is quite serious. Over the course of last year, with hundreds of thousands of comments, there were two or three that were violent threats. You can delete and report and block people and the police have options around particular people. It’s something you have to manage because there’s no other way to control it.”

According to Hello!, “A lot of hours are being spent reviewing old material and moderating comments under posts.”

Although the Duchess of Sussex deleted her social media accounts ahead of her marriage to Prince Harry and Kate has never had personal pages, Kensington Palace shares news about Prince William, Prince Harry and their families – but arguments can get quite heated between Meghan supporters and Kate supporters.

“It follows a Kate vs Meghan narrative and some of the worst stuff is between Kate fans and Meghan fans,” the source told Hello! “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?”

In response, the news outlet has launched the #HelloToKindness campaign, to combat negative online behavior. Emily Nash, royals reporter at Hello!, adds that the magazine has noticed the abuse on their own social media pages related to stories about Meghan and Kate, both 37. They’ve even had to turn off comments after comments became threatening.

“It seems to me to be particularly sexist,” Nash told CNN. “You have people comparing them in a way that doesn’t really happen with men – ‘she’s walking funny, or her heels are too high, or her legs are too skinny.’”

[From People]

On the Kensington Royal social media – Instagram and Twitter – I’ve seen the comments and back-and-forth in the comments. Sussex-supporters have been pointing out for months that the KP social media clearly favors the Cambridges – the Cambridges get post after post, photo after photo of each one of their events, while it often takes hours for the Sussexes’ activities to even get one photo posted. Now I kind of wonder if KP has been avoiding doing posts about the Sussexes because they know it will be hours of work for them to moderate, delete and block comments from haters, racists and trolls. But… wouldn’t that indicate that far from “both sides,” it’s mostly just anti-Meghan trolls using the same racist dog-whistle cues which they get from the British press?

Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.