Prince Harry, Meghan Markle working to reform social media ‘crises of hate and truth’
Prince Harry has revealed what he and Meghan have been doing in lockdown, including envisaging a world better than what Google and Facebook created.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been calling leaders and executives at tech companies to tell them to re-evaluate their role in the world, accusing them of contributing to or creating crises of hate, health and truth.
Prince Harry outlined the pair’s recent work in an article for Fast Company, saying the online world needs to be reimagined to become a place of “community and connection, tolerance and empathy, and joy and kindness above all”.
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He said he and wife, Meghan Markle, began their activism around the same time as the Stop Hate for Profit campaign was pressuring more than a thousand large advertisers to withhold money from Facebook as part of a boycott which “forced an unprecedented public examination of Facebook’s deep harms to marginalised communities and the health of our democracy,” according to the organisers, who claim they convinced advertisers to withhold $US7 billion throughout last month.
“Before these efforts, Facebook fiercely opposed civil rights protections and totally expunging hate unless there were public relations crises to handle,” Prince Harry wrote in the article.
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It might seem like Facebook and its associated platforms WhatsApp and Instagram are free services, and while they are free to access, that’s because they’re not the company’s real product: you are — a reality Prince Harry also sought to convey.
“Every time you click they learn more about you,” he said.
“Our information, private data, and unknown habits are traded on for advertising space and dollars.
“The price we’re all paying is much higher than it appears.”
Prince Harry said he and Meghan had been talking to “experts in this space” and believe a revolution is in order.
“We believe we have to remodel the architecture of our online community in a way defined more by compassion than hate; by truth instead of misinformation; by equity and inclusiveness instead of injustice and fearmongering; by free, rather than weaponised, speech.”
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Prince Harry and Meghan have waged a war on the tabloid media and fought fiercely for their right to privacy since stepping back from their royal role in January.
He called for industry leaders to “draw a line in the sand” and worried that the impacts of social media and the online world on children could be worse than we yet know about.
He compared the damage being done to that of lead paint which was used in the past and used the example of baby son Archie’s future.
“If we are susceptible to the coercive forces in digital spaces, then we have to ask ourselves — what does this mean for our children? As a father, this is especially concerning to me,” he said.
Another note of particular concern for the royal couple is that spending on online media is about to overtake traditional media.
Given the highly consolidated nature of digital advertising, much of that money will be going to Facebook and Google.
Do you think the internet needs reforming? Have your say in the comments below.
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