"Tweets of abuse against Meghan Markle are unreadable"
16 January 2020, 15:10
This scientist who studied abusive tweets about Meghan Markle said they contain "some of the worst racist and misogynistic terms" to the point his colleagues in the study got upset.
Dr John Price conducted this study capture for the first 24 hours after the Sussexes' announcement to step back as senior royals.
The Tweets were "overwhelmingly negative" and there were about 400 Tweets which contained "some of the worst racist and misogynistic terms."
"Even for people like myself who deal with this stuff on a regular basis, it's still shocking to read. I know some of my computing colleagues who aren't used to dealing with this sort of stuff get really upset when they read the kind of stuff that we're capturing," said the doctor.
He admitted that even though he captures Tweets frequently online as part of his job, he was "still shocked."
Dr Price estimated that the higher profile a person you are, the worse the online abuse is, such as female politicians who "deal with this stuff on a daily basis."
Shelagh said that she also receives "vicious" daily tweets but she sets up her computer so she can't see them.
Dr Price said that unfortunately if you're a high profile person you will get a lot of abuse and the sad fact is that you'll get a lot more if you're a woman - he referenced a study which found female politicians get three times as much abuse as their male counterparts.
A lot of the abuse against Meghan was misogynistic, he said, but there's the "added issue of racist content as well."
