Move follows high levels of abuse aimed at Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Social media trolls who post offensive or abusive messages on the royal family’s platforms now face being blocked and may be reported to police under new guidelines published by Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Kensington Palace.

The move follows revelations last month of high levels of vitriol and abuse, especially aimed at the Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex.

Some of the worst, hate-filled personal abuse is said to be between competing camps that support Kate or Meghan, fuelled by some media reporting that pits the women as rivals.

The guidelines have been introduced to try to maintain a safe environment on channels run by the three households, and call for users to show “courtesy, kindness and respect”.

The royal family’s website warns that the palaces reserve the right to “hide or delete” comments, “as well as block users who do not follow these guidelines”.

“We also reserve the right to send any comments we deem appropriate to law enforcement authorities for investigation as we feel necessary or is required by law.”

Last month it was revealed Kensington Palace staff were spending several hours a week moderating and deleting posts, which include racist and sexist abuse as well as threatening remarks.

Kensington Palace had sought help from Instagram to deal with the problem. According to a senior source, palace policy is not to take down comments merely critical of the royals.

While some of the abuse has been directed at the two royal women, more of it was arguments between rival fans, particularly on the Kensington Palace Instagram account, which has 7 million followers, with some posts attracting in excess of 1,000 comments. Neither Kate nor Meghan has a public personal social media account.

The rules, which were listed on the royal family’s website, call for comments not to “contain spam, be defamatory of any person, deceive others, be obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful, inflammatory or promote sexually explicit material or violence” or “promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age”.

Blocking undesirable comments is a policy often adopted by high-profile personalities. But last year, when the US president, Donald Trump, blocked some users from his presidential Twitter account, a New York district court ruled it unconstitutional because the account was deemed an official political channel, and so blocking violated first amendment rights to participate in a “public forum”.