Kensington Palace Just Made Moves to Tackle Online Abuse Against the Royal Family

Most of the time, there is no one more chill than Queen Elizabeth II, but mess with the royal family and Her Majesty will step up to solve the problem—probably while wearing an excellent colored suit. This morning, Kensington Palace has made the rare move to speak out against the online abuse that the royal family has been facing (opens in new tab) of late, issuing a set of frank guidelines on how to properly interact with channels run by the royals.

The statement (opens in new tab) from the palace, issued by the Twitter account of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, comes after what can only be described as an online frenzy spanning the past few months, with brutal speculation, shocking abuse and rumors more ridiculous by the day—let's be honest, largely aimed towards the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle (opens in new tab).

While the palace usually remains impartial and tight-lipped regarding online coverage of the royals (they sometimes speak out to categorically deny certain inflammatory headlines (opens in new tab)), the new guidelines shared by both Kensington Palace and Clarence House highlight the importance of creating a “safe environment on all social media channels.”

The statement goes on to explain how the royals aim to create an online community that “can engage safely in debate and is free to make comments, questions and suggestions”. In keeping with such an outlook, the palace goes on to ask for “courtesy, kindness and respect for all other members of our social media communities.”

More specifically, the new official guidelines state that comments regarding the royal family must not “be defamatory of any person, deceive others, be obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful, inflammatory or promote sexually explicit material or violence.” Similarly, they must not “promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.”

Perhaps most kick-ass of all, Kensington Palace goes on to make no mistake that any online trolls who go against these guidelines will feel the repercussions. As well as promising to deleting and blocking any abuse that’s spotted across the platforms, the royal representatives also add that they will “send any comments we deem appropriate to law enforcement authorities for investigation.”

While it's sad that this is a necessary move from the palace, it's about time that the barrage of online abuse is taken a little more seriously. Insert clapping hands emojis right here.

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