As few as 83 accounts are responsible for about 70% of the negative and hateful comments published about Meghan Markle on Twitter, a report has claimed.
Bot Sentinel, a free platform using AI to analyse data, studied a sample of 114,000 tweets written about the Sussexes since January 2020 - when they announced their decision of stepping down as senior members of the Royal Family - to track the negativity spread about the couple on social media.
The analysis identified 55 accounts used to spread negative content about the Duchess of Sussex and 28 secondary accounts that "amplified" the main accounts.
The report says the 83 accounts had a total of 187,631 followers on Twitter.
But Bot Sentinel said it estimates a combined unique potential reach of 17,000,000 users.
Twitter said it was "actively investigating the information and accounts" mentioned in the report.
The company added it would take action on any accounts that violate the social media network's rules.
But a number of accounts mentioned in the report responded by saying that it was important to keep free speech, and others have questioned the credibility of the research itself.
The Bot Sential report explained: "The accounts we were monitoring did not confine their hatred to Twitter. They would often tweet links to private blogs, Instagram accounts, and YouTube channels predominately focused on Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
"We used Twitter accounts without friends or followers during our research, and after viewing two hate accounts, Twitter’s algorithm began suggesting numerous hate accounts. On multiple occasions, Twitter recommended we follow these hate accounts
"It is our opinion the accounts included in this report are violating Twitter’s rules on platform manipulation and spam, abuse/harassment, and publishing private information."
Among the most recent tweets by an account using the Twitter handle @LovetheMonarchy reads: "The Meghan hating women are beautiful and could be royals themselves. So much more classy than Meg."
In another tweet, the same account asked whether people knew any "interesting" conspiracies against Meghan Markle - before sharing a link to an "anti Meg" Facebook group, asking people to join it.
The account @MeghansMole shared a gif showing Harry and Meghan smiling at an event, with the caption: "The look of complete arrogance."
Bot Sentinel added: "We determined Twitter had previously suspended 40% of the primary accounts, and these accounts were employing tactics to avoid suspension. Some put 'parody' in their profiles, although it wasn’t a parody account.
"Others would use racist coded language about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, to avoid detection.
"We also observed several accounts either lock or completely deactivate their profiles to preserve their accounts."
Commenting on the findings, Bot Sentinel CEO Christopher Bouzy said: "There’s no motive. Are these people who hate her? Is it racism? Are they trying to hurt [Harry and Meghan’s] credibility? Your guess is as good as ours."
"This campaign comes from people who know how to manipulate the algorithms, manipulate Twitter, stay under the wire to avoid detection and suspension.
"This level of complexity comes from people who know how to do this stuff."
After the report was published, some of the accounts mentioned among those spreading hate online hit back.
One person, using @BaronessBruck as their username, wrote: "Funny! Because there's nothing 'coordinated' about Twitter open criticism & FREE SPEECH =100% Organic."
Another account, @ChangaDuchessof, retweeted the full list of accounts named in the report, saying: "Thanks for all the new people I’m now following. Seriously, this is repressing #FreedomOfSpeech."
The account @MontecitoHouse, also mentioned in the Bot Sentinel report, has been suspended and their tweets are no longer visible.
Another one, @DunceDuchess, which is listed as a "secondary" account, has been deleted.
About six of the accounts have made their profiles private - a tactic reportedly used by trolls to prevent other users from reporting their tweets.
Meghan has previously opened up on the "almost unsurvivable" abuse she received online while on maternity leave with Archie.
For this reason, she and Harry - as well as their non-profit organisation Archewell - are not on social media at the moment.
The Duchess of Sussex once said she was the "most trolled person in the world" on a podcast to mark World Mental Health Day.
During the chat, the former Suits actor said: "I'm told that in 2019 I was the most trolled person in the entire world, male or female. Now, eight months of that I wasn't even visible, I was on maternity leave or with a baby.
"But what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it's almost unsurvivable, that's so big, you can't think of what that feels like, because I don't care if you're 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren't true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging."
Harry previously said social media had helped create "a crisis of hate, a crisis of health and a crisis of truth".
A Twitter spokesperson said: "Our teams are reviewing the accounts referenced in this report and have taken enforcement action, when appropriate, against accounts and content that violates the Twitter Rules, including potential violations of our hateful conduct policy and our coordinated harmful activity policy.
"Of the 50+ accounts referenced in the report, our teams took action on four accounts for violations of our platform manipulation and spam policy, meaning that many of these accounts are in fact run by unique individuals. At this time, there’s no evidence of widespread coordination, the use of multiple accounts by single people, or other platform manipulation tactics.
"Today, by using technology, 65% of the abusive content we remove is surfaced proactively for human review — before people on Twitter even see the content — instead of relying on reports from people using Twitter. Further, we’ve built sophisticated tools to proactively take down content that is spammy or attempts to manipulate the conversation."
The Mirror has contacted and Harry and Meghan's representatives for comment.
