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<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middletons-health-buckingham-palace-grapples-conspiracy-theories" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Conspiracy theories</a> that took over social media amid Kate Middleton’s mystery health situation — before she revealed her cancer diagnosis last week — were amplified by Russian disinformation campaigns, according to security researchers at Cardiff University in Wales. While there was legitimate concern for the Princess of Wales’ health and her whereabouts while she was recovering from a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-hospitalized-surgery-expected-stay-2-weeks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"planned abdominal surgery"</a> in January, and privately beginning chemotherapy treatments, Kremlin contractors were also taking advantage of the frenzy around the royal to promote pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian narratives. "We have a long-term program of research looking at disinformation and information manipulation online and what we did in this particular case was we were monitoring the traffic around the story about the Princess of Wales and we noticed some unusual spikes in the traffic," Professor Martin Innes, Cardiff University's Security, Crime and Intelligence Institute director, told ABC Australia radio host Patricia Karvelas.  Innes said when their researchers looked into the spikes more closely, "we saw some unusual patterns of activity and behavior on a number of accounts that we recognized from having looked at a particular Russian disinformation group before." <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/queen-camilla-says-kate-middleton-thrilled-accepts-touching-sign-two-young-fans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">QUEEN CAMILLA SAYS KATE MIDDLETON WILL BE ‘THRILLED’ AS SHE ACCEPTS TOUCHING SIGN FROM TWO TOUNG FANS</a>He added, "The group in question has been around for several years now, and it’s quite well-known in the open-source research community. What they were doing in this particular example was they were taking advantage of the massive amount of interest that there was in the story." He said rather than posting original content themselves about the princess’ health, "they would find popular posts, and then they would reply to those posts, inserting their own content into the comments and replies."He continued, "Typically, the content would either be <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/conflicts/ukraine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denigrating Ukraine</a> and celebrating Russia’s achievements in the war or talking up the integrity of the recent Russian election." <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middletons-cancer-announcement-video-featured-symbol-hope-fight-against-disease" target="_blank" rel="noopener">KATE MIDDLETON'S CANCER ANNOUNCEMENT VIDEO FEATURED SYMBOL OF HOPE IN FIGHT AGAINST DISEASE</a>Interest in Middleton’s health turned into a frenzy soon after Kensington Palace announced on Jan. 17, that the princess had undergone a "planned abdominal surgery" and would postpone her public engagements until Easter. To quell the rumor mill, on March 10, the princess posted a photo of herself with her children, wishing Brits a happy Mother’s Day. News agencies like the Associated Press deemed the photo to be "manipulated" and pulled it, saying it didn’t meet their journalistic standards. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/prince-william-simmering-over-kate-middleton-health-speculation-bound-to-crack-expert" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PRINCE WILLIAM ‘SIMMERING’ OVER KATE MIDDLETON HEALTH SPECULATION, IS ‘BOUND TO CRACK’: EXPERT</a>Despite Middleton’s admission that she sometimes likes to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-apologizes-confusion-around-edited-family-photo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"experiment with editing,"</a> the photo further inflamed already out-of-control conspiracy theories. The rumors only began to die down after the princess delivered a video message on March 22 that she had been <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-announces-cancer-undergoing-chemotherapy-treatment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">diagnosed with cancer</a>. Innes told NBC News and The New York Times, that the researchers had identified 45 social media accounts that were linked to the Russian disinformation group Doppelgänger.He also noted that the group didn’t start any of the conspiracy theories, but rather seized on them. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS</a>"It’s not as though these Russia-linked accounts were driving the story; they were jumping on it," he told NBC News. "It was already being framed in conspiracy terms, so foreign actors don’t need to set that frame — that’s already there to exploit."Innes explained that replying to posts rather than creating original content is strategic because it makes it harder for social media platforms to regulate their comments. "They obviously have an ideological agenda, but what’s interesting about this group is they’re not part of the state security services, which is some of the actors we’ve been seeing behind other disinformation campaigns," he told ABC Australia. "They are commercial organizations contracted by the Kremlin to deliver social media messaging for them a bit like sort of a dark PR firm." <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/newsletters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER</a>Innes explained that along with an ideological agenda, the campaigners also want to get paid. He said they would try to meet their "performance indicators" by "jumping on popular stories and hijacking those." He said, "Not only did they manage to kind of push the narratives they want, they’re also interested in fulfilling their contract, and it’s an ideal and quite easy way for them  to hit their performance targets." Innes told NBC News that the group’s focus is on "destabilization" and "undermining trust in institutions" such as government, the monarchy and media. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/download" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP</a>"The amount of attention on the story of the Princess of Wales has been enormous and so, just by inserting your messages and jumping on certain hashtags like that you can, particularly if you're persistent and keep going with it, you can get a lot of eyeballs and a lot of attention to some of the messaging that you want to put across," he told ABC Australia. The Wales-based researchers also identified dark PR firms working out of Pakistan, Indonesia, and other countries, using the frenzy around the princess to amplify ther own agendas. "And this is quite a regular occurrence now, really every hot political, celebrity story tends to attract this kind of attention," he warned. "It’s almost like they function as magnets for people who want to grow their number of followers and get attention for the messages they want to put across."

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--- !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::RSSEntry
published: 2024-03-31 02:19:41.000000000 Z
entry_id: !ruby/object:Feedjira::Parser::GloballyUniqueIdentifier
 is_perma_link: 'true'
 guid: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-conspiracy-theories-exploited-russian-disinformation-campaign-amplify-agenda-university
title: 'Kate Middleton conspiracy theories exploited by Russian disinformation campaign
 to amplify agenda: university'
categories:
- d23c284f-311a-5ff2-b27f-fe9d7851b8d0
- fnc
- Fox News
- fox-news/entertainment
- fox-news/world/personalities/british-royals
- fox-news/world/personalities/kate
- fox-news/entertainment
- article
content: '<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middletons-health-buckingham-palace-grapples-conspiracy-theories"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">Conspiracy theories</a> that took over social media
 amid Kate Middleton’s mystery health situation — before she revealed her cancer
 diagnosis last week — were amplified by Russian disinformation campaigns, according
 to security researchers at Cardiff University in Wales. While there was legitimate
 concern for the Princess of Wales’ health and her whereabouts while she was recovering
 from a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-hospitalized-surgery-expected-stay-2-weeks"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">"planned abdominal surgery"</a> in January, and privately
 beginning chemotherapy treatments, Kremlin contractors were also taking advantage
 of the frenzy around the royal to promote pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian narratives. "We
 have a long-term program of research looking at disinformation and information manipulation
 online and what we did in this particular case was we were monitoring the traffic
 around the story about the Princess of Wales and we noticed some unusual spikes
 in the traffic," Professor Martin Innes, Cardiff University''s Security, Crime and
 Intelligence Institute director, told ABC Australia radio host Patricia Karvelas.
  Innes said when their researchers looked into the spikes more closely, "we
 saw some unusual patterns of activity and behavior on a number of accounts that
 we recognized from having looked at a particular Russian disinformation group before." <a
 href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/queen-camilla-says-kate-middleton-thrilled-accepts-touching-sign-two-young-fans"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">QUEEN CAMILLA SAYS KATE MIDDLETON WILL BE
 ‘THRILLED’ AS SHE ACCEPTS TOUCHING SIGN FROM TWO TOUNG FANS</a>He
 added, "The group in question has been around for several years now, and it’s quite
 well-known in the open-source research community. What they were doing in this particular
 example was they were taking advantage of the massive amount of interest that there
 was in the story." He said rather than posting original content themselves
 about the princess’ health, "they would find popular posts, and then they would
 reply to those posts, inserting their own content into the comments and replies."He
 continued, "Typically, the content would either be <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/conflicts/ukraine"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">denigrating Ukraine</a> and celebrating Russia’s
 achievements in the war or talking up the integrity of the recent Russian election." <a
 href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middletons-cancer-announcement-video-featured-symbol-hope-fight-against-disease"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">KATE MIDDLETON''S CANCER ANNOUNCEMENT VIDEO
 FEATURED SYMBOL OF HOPE IN FIGHT AGAINST DISEASE</a>Interest in
 Middleton’s health turned into a frenzy soon after Kensington Palace announced on
 Jan. 17, that the princess had undergone a "planned abdominal surgery" and would
 postpone her public engagements until Easter. To quell the rumor mill, on
 March 10, the princess posted a photo of herself with her children, wishing Brits
 a happy Mother’s Day. News agencies like the Associated Press deemed the photo to
 be "manipulated" and pulled it, saying it didn’t meet their journalistic standards. <a
 href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/prince-william-simmering-over-kate-middleton-health-speculation-bound-to-crack-expert"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">PRINCE WILLIAM ‘SIMMERING’ OVER KATE MIDDLETON
 HEALTH SPECULATION, IS ‘BOUND TO CRACK’: EXPERT</a>Despite Middleton’s
 admission that she sometimes likes to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-apologizes-confusion-around-edited-family-photo"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">"experiment with editing,"</a> the photo further
 inflamed already out-of-control conspiracy theories. The rumors only began
 to die down after the princess delivered a video message on March 22 that she had
 been <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-announces-cancer-undergoing-chemotherapy-treatment"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">diagnosed with cancer</a>. Innes told NBC
 News and The New York Times, that the researchers had identified 45 social media
 accounts that were linked to the Russian disinformation group Doppelgänger.He
 also noted that the group didn’t start any of the conspiracy theories, but rather
 seized on them. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment" target="_blank"
 rel="noopener noreferrer">LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE
 ENTERTAINMENT NEWS</a>"It’s not as though these Russia-linked
 accounts were driving the story; they were jumping on it," he told NBC News. "It
 was already being framed in conspiracy terms, so foreign actors don’t need to set
 that frame — that’s already there to exploit."Innes explained that replying
 to posts rather than creating original content is strategic because it makes it
 harder for social media platforms to regulate their comments. "They obviously
 have an ideological agenda, but what’s interesting about this group is they’re not
 part of the state security services, which is some of the actors we’ve been seeing
 behind other disinformation campaigns," he told ABC Australia. "They are commercial
 organizations contracted by the Kremlin to deliver social media messaging for them
 a bit like sort of a dark PR firm." <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/newsletters"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT
 NEWSLETTER</a>Innes explained that along with an ideological
 agenda, the campaigners also want to get paid. He said they would try to meet their
 "performance indicators" by "jumping on popular stories and hijacking those." He
 said, "Not only did they manage to kind of push the narratives they want, they’re
 also interested in fulfilling their contract, and it’s an ideal and quite easy way
 for them  to hit their performance targets." Innes told NBC News that the
 group’s focus is on "destabilization" and "undermining trust in institutions" such
 as government, the monarchy and media. <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/download"
 target="_blank" rel="noopener">CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP</a>"The
 amount of attention on the story of the Princess of Wales has been enormous and
 so, just by inserting your messages and jumping on certain hashtags like that you
 can, particularly if you''re persistent and keep going with it, you can get a lot
 of eyeballs and a lot of attention to some of the messaging that you want to put
 across," he told ABC Australia. The Wales-based researchers also identified
 dark PR firms working out of Pakistan, Indonesia, and other countries, using the
 frenzy around the princess to amplify ther own agendas. "And this is quite
 a regular occurrence now, really every hot political, celebrity story tends to attract
 this kind of attention," he warned. "It’s almost like they function as magnets for
 people who want to grow their number of followers and get attention for the messages
 they want to put across."'
summary: Dozens of accounts linked to a Russian disinformation group contracted by
 the Kremlin were amplifying conspiracy theories about Kate Middleton&apos;s health,
 according to researchers.
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 news_filer_version: 2
 newspaper: US general38
 macro_region: USA
url: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/kate-middleton-conspiracy-theories-exploited-russian-disinformation-campaign-amplify-agenda-university
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image: https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/03/931/523/kate-middleton-frowning.jpg?ve=1&tl=1

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