“The online persecution of the Princess of Wales is one of the ugliest spectacles of our time. For months, an unholy alliance of crackpot conspiracy theorists have been using the internet to hound Kate and her young family.
This motley mob of anti-Kate trolls have been pumping out cruel speculation about her health and whereabouts. They have swarmed social media sites to push feverish, flagrantly fact-free theories about Her Royal Highness.
Is she really ill? Or is she in hiding? Perhaps she has abandoned Palace life following a falling-out with William. All rubbish. All stupid. All adding to the Waleses’ burden.
There are other, viler, theories, often compounded by inaccurate stories in the mainstream foreign Press which doesn’t have the decorum of the British media. Indeed, Spanish papers last week published flawed, unfounded reports.
Amid reports that Kate is ‘considering’ making balcony appearance at Saturday’s Trooping the Colour, the cruelty of such misinformation is mind-blowing.
Who in their right mind would spend their days promoting hurtful rumours about a young mother diagnosed with cancer? Why would anyone make a hobby out of taunting a poorly mum whose only ‘crime’ is to take time out to convalesce from surgery and illness?
The fact is that the trolling of Kate betrays a moral rot. It’s been going on since January, when it was announced that she was undergoing abdominal surgery.
Crucially, that news should have meant that her medical privacy would be respected. But the abuse has continued ever since, summed up, in particular, by the demented reaction to a charming picture of Kate and her children that was released to mark Mother’s Day.
Kate’s admission that she had tweaked the image in a minor way – something everyone does in the selfie era – was seized upon as proof, yes proof (!), by poundshop Columbos that the royals are hiding something”
AC