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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's new charity website redirected to Kanye West's Gold Digger

Both archewellcharity.com and archewellfoundation.com have been compromised 

Chelsea Ritschel
Friday 10 April 2020 11:22 BST
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Harry and Meghan to launch charitable organisation named Archewell

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s new charity is being targeted by trolls who have redirected potential domains for the website to a video of Kanye West’s Gold Digger ahead of its launch.

This week, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed plans to launch a new charitable organisation called Archewell.

According to the couple, who discussed details regarding the new charity with The Telegraph, they do not yet have a date for the launch of the charity because their focus is currently on the coronavirus pandemic.

But curious fans of the couple realised something was amiss on Wednesday, when they attempted to visit the URL www.archewellfoundation.com, only to find it redirected to West’s 2005 song, according to Fox News.

As of Thursday morning, the site’s redirect had been removed, with users attempting to visit the site only finding a blank page that states the server cannot be found.

The first domain name no longer links to Gold Digger  

However, the domain name archewellcharity.com has since been compromised, with the link leading visitors back to the same song.

“So... sources say the archewellfoundation link is down. Now, if you want to listen to some Kanye, you have to go to archewellcharity.com,” one person tweeted. “I guess this is what happens when someone leaves the gilded cage…”

Another said: “This is trolling on a whole other level.”

Others suggested that the Sussexes should have purchased relevant domain names once they’d announced the name of their new charity.

“Regardless of what you think about this - this is exactly why you need a digital first PR team - traditional PR thinking doesn’t work - not buying a $15 URL immediately is an inexcusable mistake,” one person tweeted.

This week, the couple revealed that they had chosen the name Arche because it is “the Greek word meaning ‘source of action’”.

“We connected to this concept for the charitable organisation we hoped to build one day, and it became the inspiration for our son’s name. To do something of meaning, to do something that matters,” the duke and duchess said, adding that they look forward to launching Archewell “when the time is right”.

The Independent has contacted a spokesperson for the Sussexes.

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