Just one week ago, social media was all abuzz that Buckingham Palace was about to make some big, terrible announcement, that the BBC had been called in to break the news about something. Then Russian media began amplifying claims that King Charles had died on St. Patrick’s Day. Buckingham Palace was able to shut down the rumor mill within 24 hours – Charles made sure he was photographed a few times and the palace issued some simple statements. The whole thing had the feel of a psyop, but it also felt like it was yet another example of the Windsors inability to control the messaging around Charles and the Princess of Wales’s health. Well, now that Princess Kate has informed everyone about her cancer and chemotherapy, it looks like that has just fueled even more misinformation and disinformation. This, according to the British government:
China, Russia and Iran are fuelling disinformation about the Princess of Wales to destabilise the nation, Whitehall sources believe. Senior Government figures fear that hostile states are behind the spread of wild conspiracy theories and online rumours surrounding the Princess’s health.
After the Princess announced her cancer diagnosis on Friday evening, Rishi Sunak led the condemnation of social media trolls for targeting her online in recent weeks. But his intervention did not deter further frenzied commentary, with a disinformation chief saying on Sunday that the Princess had been “revictimised” by trolls criticising her for not publicly revealing her diagnosis sooner.
On Sunday, it emerged that there was growing concern in Whitehall that hostile state actors could be involved in whipping up the frenzied social media attacks on the Princess. A government source told The Telegraph: “Part of the modus operandi of hostile states is to destabilise things – whether that is undermining the legitimacy of our elections or other institutions.”
It comes as Downing Street is preparing to announce fresh sanctions on China as soon as Monday, after a wave of state-backed cyber attacks against a group of senior MPs and peers.
Multiple things can be true and are true all at once – Russia and China are absolutely behind disinformation campaigns to destabilize Western institutions, and it would not surprise me in the least if the “Charles is dead” situation one week ago was some kind of dry run for a larger Russian disruption this year. There are absolutely foreign governments and anarchistic forces at play here. But I think all of the “misinformation” is being conflated as the work of dark and sinister forces, when some of it is a matter of FAFO. From what I can see, Kensington Palace has their own bot farm too, a bot farm which they use to amplify their message and attack their enemies. Something else happened over the weekend too, which sidles up alongside this conversation: QAnon-types are now questioning everything about the Windsors as a “Deep State crisis actors” and on and on. It feels like some of that (conspiracist nutjobs in the West) is being conflated with “this too is a Russian psyop.” But what do I know.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencaps courtesy of Kensington Palace.
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- Commonwealth Day Service At Westminster Abbey Featuring: King Charles III, Camilla, Queen Consort, Prince William, Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 13 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Commonwealth Day Service At Westminster Abbey Featuring: King Charles III, Camilla, Queen Consort, Prince William, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince Edward, Sophie Wessex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 13 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Commonwealth Day Service At Westminster Abbey Featuring: King Charles III, Camilla, Queen Consort, Prince William, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince Edward, Sophie Wessex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 13 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Commonwealth Day Service At Westminster Abbey Featuring: King Charles III, Camilla, Queen Consort, Prince William, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Prince Edward, Sophie Wessex Where: London, United Kingdom When: 13 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Commonwealth Day Service At Westminster Abbey Featuring: King Charles III, Camilla, Queen Consort, Prince William, Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: London, United Kingdom When: 13 Mar 2023 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey Featuring: King Charles III Where: London, United Kingdom When: 13 Mar 2023 Credit: Dutch Press Photo/Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR PUBLICATION IN THE NETHERLANDS OR FRANCE**
Kensington Palace and the British tabloids have somewhat less credit than China/Russia/Iran after the barrage of lies, bullshit and fake photos the palace has spewed out over the past three months. I don’t believe a word the palace says about anything any more.
They have nobody but themselves to thank. Sir Walter Scott’s “Tangled Web” seems particularly apropos at this time.
👆 yes
They all have no credibility. Thanks to their own doing. Idiots.
Agreed, Carmen. The royals and the complicit British media have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. It is entirely their own fault for creating such a huge vulnerability and opportunity for bad actors to try to grow the distrust in the British government, because they cannot be trusted and they are regularly lying to the public, even a bout the most ridiculous things just to feed royal egos.
Charles has been relatively transparent and the big attack was on him. Social media was going nuts over the alleged “big announcement” and Charles’ “death” on St P’s day.
Agreed. Ridiculous watching the UK public’s self-righteous attempt at shaming the world for “attacking” a lying princess all while they feed at the trough of conspiracy theories put out by UK media daily about the Sussex’s that they, the UK public, suck down like mother’s milk. Self aware much?
Exactly. Well put!
Well said. So sad really to see all of this going down. BP and KP especially really are just exposing themselves now for all to see. How sad it is that instead of coming together to support one and all .. they choose the opposite. Not helpful for the three dealing with cancer.
Weaponising cancer is becoming a standard tactic toward a public who had guessed something was very wrong and was very right. And the majority of the public are not bots nor trolls.
Let’s not diminish the awful things especially Russian-paid actors have done to increase disunity and spread lies to destabilize Western societies. And this is not so much aimed at people posting here, but in general.
Their influence is massive, helping bring about Trump’s election, Brexit and just general hatred in general between different groups of people.
That they want to tie their ultimately silly frankenphoto scandal to this, diminishes how awful this Russian influence has been to our countries.
Flowerlake, but those Russian (and other countries) paid actors were helped by the media. This is a problem in the UK and the US. We have media (Murdoch for example) that will take that disinformation and announce it far and wide. When the UK stops their media from amplifying foreign disinformation, then I’ll put more credence in what Whitehall says.
“The whole thing had the feel of a psyop..”
It’s par for the course. Soon after the Ukraine/Russia war started, the West was pushing the narrative Putin was very ill. By 10/23 he was dying or dead.
@Eos, false equivalence.
I am talking about massive and constant campaigns of influencing social media by making countless of fake accounts spreading all kinds of misinformation and starting constant fights.
Of pretending to be people who they are not (POC, women, LGBTQ+ etc) and purposely saying things they know will annoy people, and make them hate any of the above groups even more.
That is just a very small part of it. There is a lot of information out there. Please look it up
And yes, they are helped by what Russians see as ‘useful idiots’ that fall for all kinds of misinformation and sometimes even side with pro-Putin agents.
If you are any of the following: female, poc, LGBTQ+, Putin is not your friend and that is putting it very mildly.
Is Kensington Palace now to be considered a hostile state?
This feels like an attempt to label anyone that questions the PR work of KP “anti-British bad actors”, when it’s been mostly just good questions from smart people.
KP hasn’t even released a financial statement for last year’s spending and they have the nerve to call out bad actors? Their digital footprint must be massive and they don’t want it known. This campaign against the Sussexes is going to break that duchy and now this year’s “Let’s hide Kate” is only adding to those expenses.
Just curious about what the British people get out of all of this PR nonsense?
We get it, everyone is now clutching their pearls because (1) KP didn’t get ahead of the rumor cycle quickly enough and (2) people who are now, rightly, pointing out how much they f-ked up are making them feel anxiety.
Well, guess what, PR folk? Using Kate’s illness as an excuse for your failings is reprehensible. I’m looking at you especially, Huevo.
Oh but apparently smart people are “revictimising” “tr*lls.” From what I can recall, a lot of the Sussex era scrutiny over Kate was motivated by asking critics of H&M to have the same energy for W&K. Once the truth about the invisible contract and Jason Knauf came out, the gloves came off here—but even then it was mostly making fun of buttons, not the kind of smears leveled at Meghan. And during this final phase of speculation, a lot of us were genuinely worried about her welfare. I guess we can’t be surprised about the gaslighting; we were warned.
Nobody has forgotten that someone was hiding Kate’s real hospital location, or that William never visited, or that he blew off a *funeral oration for his godfather* but yet had time to go get drunk a few days later. Seriously, we all remember that this was one of the worst PR failings in history, and the solution was literally to trot out a cancer patient and have her chat about it because they f-ked up so badly.
Yeah, it’s not revictimizing or whatever made up term they’ve invented, it’s pointing out their own terrible handling.
Acha agree. It seems Russia is being made the boggle man. There are a lot of bad actors undermining groups. Looks like they are trying to blame/ hide under Russia.
As important as the RF is to monarchists, it’s not like they’re essential to the government or running the country. How would disinformation about Kate destabilize anything? These people have been huffing their own farts for way too long.
I don’t see it either. Even with KC it wouldn’t be a big deal. Look how QE was just propped up at the end of her reign and nothing bad happened (or with her death). Kate isn’t essential to the line of succession or anything.
State sponsored/funded Russian trolls stir up and amplify anything that will rile up the MAGA types, anywhere in the world. These people are the base of support for the ultra-conservative parties destabilizing democracy around the globe. In the UK, they are inevitably supporters of the monarchy, so creating a narrative that Kate is under attack would be right up their alley.
Of course, the tabloids are largely in the business of whipping up frenzy in the same people, so it’s all hard to sort out. But please do look to see who you are fighting with online. If they look like a bot or troll, ignore. Anything you do to engage with them makes them look more real to the algorithm and pushes their trash in front of more people.
So now “deep state actors” are the new “witches” of the 21st century? Not saying it’s not true but Britain seems to have destabilized themselves pretty well without much outside help.
Of course KP will blame anyone and everyone else for their screw ups.
I agree. They will blame whoever they can to cover up their screw ups.
“Britain seems to have destabilized themselves pretty well without much outside help.” This! Insert web comic of the bicyclist putting a stick in the spokes of his own wheel.
So, the Daily Fail is either participating in a Russian-Chinese spy op or has been suckered in by one, since that’s one of the papers running articles calling out the inconsistencies and shaming KP and William for doing such a terrible job at PR and then throwing Kate under the bus? 🤔 Is the British government/Tories as bad at all this as the royals? I guess this is what happens when you are used to and expect an entirely complicit press.
It’s a perfect example of why the media needs to be at arm’s length from powerful institutions, whether government or corporate or diplomatic.
So Kensington Palace is a hostile state actor. I can believe it.
Both things can be true, but this is pretty rich coming from a country in defense of someone who’s fiscal budget includes millions for ” digital services”. They don’t like being in the opposite side of something they have utilized as a cudgel against others for years. And yes while I’m sure there are a lot of trolls, it’s also a lot of well educated experienced people in PR, crisis management, and who run businesses who have also pointed out the absolute lack of leadership and strategy this year. Criticism isn’t trolling in good faith. They want to conflate the two, with an added dose of any criticism of us is a celebration of cancer itself which is preposterous.
When social media trolls target Kate it’s “foreign nations trying to destabilize the UK”. When trolls (whipped up by continual British media stories) target H&M its “OK, nothing to see here, all is good, they deserve it”.
Last week they were blaming Americans on social media for the KP mess.
Just when will the trash tabloids get off of their self righteous pedestal and give Kate the privacy they accuse the rest of the world of ignoring?
I’m not comfortable with this because I think its dismissive of the very poor response from KP over the last few months. I do think you can see an active disinformation campaign seeping into the discussion about KP’s actions. But I think the whole “where is Kate” thing was actually relatively organic, as these things go – the combination of the announcement of a vague surgery, William’s sudden absence from the memorial service (while attending events with Tom Cruise and celebrities), the car pap photo, the frankenphoto, etc.
I said on here (last week I think) that it was getting annoying because it felt like every day we had a new person pop up who had “insider knowledge” and they knew X information about Kate for a FACT – we heard she was definitely in Mustique, we heard Louis broke both her legs, we heard it was definitely a bowel resection with a colostomy bag, we heard it was stage 4 cancer, etc. Were all of those just random posters making up stories, or were some of those posts part of an active disinformation campaign?
I think this is a mess of KP’s own making, and I think some “people” (organizations, governments, IDK) took advantage of it to see what they could do. I don’t even think the whole “Charles is dead” story would have gained as much traction if it wasn’t for people insisting that Kate’s sickness was a cover for Charles’ situation.
But the root of this whole mess is Kensington Palace.
@Becks1: “But the root of this whole mess is Kensington Palace.” Absolutely. I felt rather awful after her video was released, then I thought about how they could have avoided this mess. They could’ve said there were complications, or stressed that on a liquid diet (which I’m sure she was/is), she was just very tired and resting. Anything that would quell the gossip and theories without releasing too much information.
Isn’t there a saying that ‘nature abhors a vacuum’? As many here have said from the start, whatever was going on (we don’t need to know details of her condition and care), they could have done the same as Charles did with the messages, photo’s etc. Even if she didn’t want pictures taken (totally understandable), a steady stream of briefed stories on how she’s getting better, the kids are great, family by her side, etc. would have done the trick. We now know that yes, they later discovered that what they removed was cancerous and I’m sure there were a few days of checking that there was no more cancer in her body but other than that the reassuring stories could have continued apace while they decided what/when she wanted to share.
The Frankenphoto? Dodgy video? Just WHY? Way to add fuel to the conspiracies.
My thoughts exactly, SarahCS. I’m sure foreign governments did take advantage. But it was KP that cracked the door wide enough for that to happen. W&K think they can be part time royals with all the perks of being private citizens. Let’s hope they have learned their lesson (I highly doubt it). The British government should step in early next time as a matter of security.
The Russian involvement has been around for years and the anti Meghan bots come there more than anything else. Creating disruption and culture wars is what they are doing in the UK and the U.S.
But it is also hypocritical to pretend that KP issuing a completely fake photo didn’t throw gas in this fire.
Also the son of a KGB agent is in the House of Lords. I mean I’m sure that’s ok. 😐
The British Government has to sought out the disinformation and misinformation operations in the British press and the Royal Family first.
How? They (Brit Government) too spreads disinformation & misinformation. (& sometimes did it for the British press and the Royal Family.)
I think Amy Bee meant to type “to seek.”
Shawna: No I meant “to sort”. Sorry for the bad spelling and grammar. Bottomline, UK has a homegrown misinformation and disinformation problem that they have fix first before they tackle the foreign operations.
Bad actors (particularly Russia) are certainly pouncing on the perceived weakness in the royal family, but they didn’t create it, they just benefit from it.
Russia didn’t force them to announce Kate’s surgery and absence without explanation, or her family and husband never to visit during the two weeks she stayed in hospital. Russia didn’t suggest that weird stunt with the flowers in the car to hide her leaving. They didn’t post a badly photoshopped photo for mother’s day and then blame Kate for it.
I don’t think Russia is responsible for the choices that William has made, either, including pulling out of his godfather’s memorial service at the last minute and claiming that he is taking time off to support his ill wife, even as we don’t see him doing that.
“Bad actors (particularly Russia) are certainly pouncing on the perceived weakness in the royal family, but they didn’t create it, they just benefit from it.”
This is basically what I was trying to say in my long post above but you said it a lot better, LOL.
Unless William’s gone to bed with a Russian operative, of course. His wandering scepter is a security issue too.
I also don’t see much point in foreign government bad actors destabilizing the monarchy. They may have jumped on the bandwagon at least as much to rehearse future attacks and to distract from their actions elsewhere. But surely Russia, China, and Iran can see what we all see which is that Great Britain would be a much stronger nation if it wasn’t pouring so much money down the monarchy rathole.
Do you remember a completely random article a year or two ago about William being sent to meet/be briefed by MI6, supposedly to get him up to speed? That article always felt really shady to me, like it was actually William being called in because he had been compromised and created a significant security risk with his behavior.
Royals being security risks and being compromised. That I can totally see. Another reason bad state actors would want to keep the British monarchy rather than destabilize it.
The Tories tried to pass off footage from some incident in New York as being London in one of their adverts. It isn’t just the ‘usual suspects’, Russia and China, trying to destabilize and trick people, BRF and some in government have become just as untrustworthy.
That they cite Kate’s situation as destabilizing rather than the rumours over CIII dying is laughable on the one hand and intriguing too. They are very committed to painting skeptics of KP as cranks and villains and it just heightens the fact that they want to throw off that scrutiny their duplicity invited.
Yes, The global conservative movement including Tories is aligned with Russia, China and Iran against the west.
Are they working around to trying to figure out a way to blame Russia or China for the photoshopping? I really don’t care as long as they lay off H&M. Let Russia and Putin be their new scapegoat.
Lol they really wana go back and say their photoshop was hacked by china and russia.
They’re absolutely right, there is an active disinformation campaign being waged currently, and it’s headquartered at Kensington Palace. Bots, paid media, comments, trolls, DARVO, gaslighting, unhinged screaming about Harry and Meghan – they’ve turned the dial up to 11, which is the tactic of a guilty party on offense, not a family telling the brave truth about a tragic diagnosis.
And I’m sorry, the office of the future king of England was just caught trying to pass off a manipulated photo as real. Multiple photos, actually, and a body double video and that’s not even getting into the deep fake debate. They’ve got a lot of nerve talking about disinformation.
If any of the astute journalists at the Fail or any other British rag actually feels like reporting on disinformation, maybe they should start with Cambridge Analytica and the fact that Trump’s election and Brexit were the same crime and that all those tactics are still being deployed in myriad ways around the world to subvert democracy and the will of the people. But the names involved read like a who’s who of Tory donors, tabloid owners, and oligarchs who always seem to absentmindedly leave their bags of cash around the Windsors, so I doubt they’re itching to have that conversation.
Ah yes, the credible “journalists” as the Fail who, just last week, took a photo holiday card the Sussexes posted years ago and digitally altered it in a manner that made the alterations obvious (intentionally poorly done) then used their altered version to support a story they ran claiming the Sussexes were somehow hypocrites on the issue of KPs Frankenphoto debacle
Spot on, Sunday! Best comment of the day.
The royal rota are no different than Russian media so pretending they are better is hilarious. The gaslighting they do to help with the BRF PR machine is not journalism but pure propaganda. They just got caught with their pants down when KP provided a totally fake photo.
The Cambridge Analytica style information warfare has moved from Facebook to TikTok.
🎯
A few weeks ago my step daughter who lives in another city started texting me about Kate going missing. Sending me every new theory out there lol. She does not follow the royals at all, this was real. People were genuinely talking about it. What struck me the most about those couple of months was what was revealed — people have no affection for Kate, and actually they have quite a bit of contempt. Yeah sure now they might feel a little guilty but the BM and the palaces trying to tell people to be ashamed of themselves will backfire. There are still too many unanswered questions about how it all played out.
Most everyone has read SPARE. And many of us have watched as married in Princess’ have been treated poorly. Fergie, a newlywed left without her husband due him not being given time with her and her not being allowed to join him on base for months at a time; Diane, left without marital affection and driven to mental breakdown by her husband with her husband continuing his use of a mistress; and Meghan, who though she did much to assist the citizens of the UK, this lead to the Royal family’s briefing negatively against her and driving her to mental breakdown. The UK Royal family are a cruel and petty bunch. So though Russia might of taken a minute to play with the Royals. Everyone knows that the Royals provided the ball and have set the example of toying with their families lives.
I don’t think that the BM lies all of the time, but they certainly don’t tell the truth all of the time, either. Social media is definitely going to spread lies quickly, but on the flip side, it can also combat misleading information.
Depending on who you are and what you believe, news from KP hits differently. I believe that H&M scored several valid points when they explained how the BM functions. I see H&M as being under attack on a regular basis for ludicrous reasons. I see WanK being protected. The internet has a ton of receipts. KP’s terrible messaging combined with odd behavior on W’s part crashed into the sketchy way they’ve run their media campaign over the last 7-8 years. They can no longer totally control the narrative, and it’s because they’ve lied in the past, that it’s gotten away from them recently.
China, Russia and Iran got rid of their royals. They don’t care about monarchy and the British Royals are delusional and refuse to take responsibility for their mess.
As I’ve learned from supporting Ukraine online, Russian and Chinese trolls (there are no Iranian ones) have zero sense of humor and cannot create a decent meme for love or money. Certainly nothing as wonderful as Kate at the WIlly Wonka experience. They are incompetent and ham-fisted, sort of like KP comms! Something to think about.
For some reason, this comment made me smile! No humor, those Russians & Chinese!
I feel like the wildest conspiracy theories were coming from Gen Z TikTokers.
So now anyone critiquing KP are trolls and hostile actors? There are 0 hostile actors working to muddy the waters regarding Kate…KP and the BM have done a good enough job of that all by themselves.
Perhaps with Charles it’s a different story…but the common thread is KP incompetence…What those hostile actors are doing is using every KP fumble and adding it to their arsenal, because when they threaten to expose the truth, I’m certain William will be MORE than willing to play ball.
Look all that happened is Russia watched the fk up of information coming out of the palaces,, in fact, Putin turned to uri and said “,” Uri have you seen these fools, I knew they were a load of inbreds, but should we show them how it’s done?
Uri says “dah Mr Putin sir,, shall we share my bottle of vodka and have some fun”!
And the Windsor walls all came tumbling down 😂😂
Mary Pester, LOL!
1. If you’ve recently been publicly compared to North Korea and Iran maybe don’t do anything to further draw links between yourself and those countries.
2. Funny how every single unmoderated forum for royal discussion is totally overrun with PRO-Wales, pro-Royal, and anti-Meghan bots hmmm?
Re your #1: they just keep on showing us how bad they are at this. Gotta love it, bless their hearts.
Sure, Jan. Russian “bad actors” are responsible for the Royal Frankenphoto and the farm video, not to mention the erratic and asinine behavior and briefings of Pegs and KP.
Next we’ll hear that Russian bad actors are behind everything the Sussexes say and do.
Geez! The level of protection for the Royal Clown Show is of epic proportions! Gotta protect the heir…at all costs. Guess the British government couldn’t resist joining the f*ckery.
I think KP has been compromised by foreign actors and this is why this nonsense is churned out.
KemperBoyd, yes, it’s coming from inside the house, but I would lay a bet that there’s a lot of Russian money that was thrown at those bad actors. The 2016 election was definitely about Russian (and probably another country or two) disinformation on sm. It’s still there.
There’s some evidence that Q is Mike Flynn, a Russian asset. So, Qanon would qualify as a Russian psyop.