Thread by @cbouzy

🧵Unfortunately, there has been a ton of misinformation regarding Yankee Wally and recent reporting, and I would like to address it now. Recently, YouTube suspended Yankee Wally’s hate channel, and it wasn’t because of a single news article or a single person...

Years of hard work and reporting led to that moment. The work started way before Bot Sentinel got involved. However, our involvement exposed the targeted harassment by single-purpose anti-Meghan hate accounts outside of royal reporting. We provided the data and hard evidence...

Back in October, when I announced Bot Sentinel would write a report on the activity, several journalists sent me DMs wanting the exclusive. I gave it to BuzzFeed for several reasons, but the main reason being we have worked with them in the past, and I felt it was a good fit...

Giving BuzzFeed News the exclusive meant sharing everything we had with BuzzFeed, including information that wouldn’t be made public, and not allowing another outlet to publish first. BuzzFeed received hundreds of hours of research for free, and we had our findings published...

I knew early on that if we were to dismantle this hate group and get YouTube to take action, I would first need to inform more people. Most of my followers had no clue Meghan Markle was receiving so much hate and were baffled why it was important or why they should care...

I used my platform to lay the foundation for the subsequent reporting. I tweeted ad nauseam about Yankee Wally and other single-purpose hate accounts to keep my followers and the Bot Sentinel community engaged. My tweeting was always meant to inform and update my followers...

For the second report, we gave TheGrio the exclusive. After Prince Harry mentioned our first and second reports during a panel discussion with Wired, BuzzFeed News wrote about Bot Sentinel again. During this time, there was extensive reporting by Newsweek about YouTube...

For the third report, we gave BuzzFeed News the exclusive again. And like before, we gave BuzzFeed News everything, including information from our sources. We started sharing information on the third report in December 2021, which continued until February 2022...

Two journalists approached me regarding Samantha Markle and Yankee Wally, and I turned down the interviews because I had already given BuzzFeed News the exclusive. It didn’t feel right to allow another news outlet to scoop BuzzFeed News on the story, so I waited...

On more than one occasion, I informed BuzzFeed News that other journalists were working on the story, and BuzzFeed News acknowledged they were aware of at least one other journalist working on a similar story. This exchange happened in early March...

Bot Sentinel isn’t a news outlet, and we don’t control when stories are published, nor do we control the content of the stories. Journalists, editors, and sometimes lawyers decide what remains and gets taken out of a story. We have no clue what is in the final story...

However, based on many discussions and the information we shared with BuzzFeed News, we knew the story was at least about Samantha Markle and Yankee Wally. We outlined their relationship in our third report, and BuzzFeed News was expanding on their relationship...

The piece BuzzFeed News published wasn’t the piece we were expecting. We felt it focused too much on Samantha Markle and white-washed Yankee Wally’s involvement and didn’t explain how dangerous Yankee Wally is. It also left out a lot of damning information...

Naturally, people were upset with BuzzFeed News because they felt they amplified a white supremacist and portrayed Yankee Wally as some delusional senior citizen just posting nonsense on the internet. The reader had no clue just how nefarious Yankee Wally was...

Moreover, the Bot Sentinel community and Sussex fans were upset that BuzzFeed News didn’t cite Bot Sentinel or even cite their article on the first report. People felt that BuzzFeed News was trying to use the work of a Black-owned company and not give proper credit...

I have remained silent on this matter because I have a policy on not attacking news outlets and journalists publicly, and I understand there are a lot of factors that determine what goes into the final piece. However, when an outlet agrees to an exclusive, they cite the source...

Here is what I will say on this matter. With the help of volunteers and hundreds of tips from sources, Bot Sentinel made all the recent reporting possible because we were the conduit. No single news outlet or person can take sole credit because it was a team effort...

YouTube didn’t terminate Yankee Wally’s channel because of one BuzzFeed News article. Newsweek and other news outlets reported on Yankee Wally and her YouTube channel months before BuzzFeed News published their article. Yankee Wally was already on thin ice...

It’s an insult to the other journalists to suggest YouTube didn’t see any of the international reporting on Yankee Wally’s YouTube channel. Even Fox News covered our third report. BuzzFeed News’ article was the final nail in the coffin, but dozens of nails were before it...

Sadly, and as expected, people have been sending hate mail and threats to BuzzFeed News. Since October, my family has been the target of this hate group, and every journalist who has covered our reports has received hate mail and threats. It’s truly terrible...

But now, imagine experiencing this sustained hate and abuse for five years just because you loved and married someone. What my family and journalists have experienced is just a fraction of what Harry and Meghan have had to endure for years. No one deserves this hate and abuse.

I will leave this right here...