Prince Harry has shared his thoughts on the term "Megxit," which came about after he and his wife Meghan Markle announced they were stepping down from their roles as senior royals in January 2020—and it's safe to say he's not a fan.
"Maybe people know this and maybe they don’t, but the term Megxit was or is a misogynistic term, and it was created by a troll, amplified by royal correspondents, and it grew and grew and grew into mainstream media. But it began with a troll," the Duke of Sussex said as part of the RE:WIRED 2021 online summit (via the Guardian).
The duke was weighing in on "The Internet Lie Machine" panel, and spoke out about rampant misinformation not only online but also in the media, especially in British tabloids.
"Misinformation is a global humanitarian crisis," he said. "I've felt it personally over the years, and I'm now watching it happen globally, affecting everyone, not just America, literally everyone around the world."
But even as major platforms like Facebook and Twitter have accelerated the spread of misinformation, for Prince Harry, the problem existed long before. "This problem, it did not originate on social media, and you do not need to be online to be affected by it," he said. "I learned from a very early age that the incentives of publishing are not necessarily aligned with the incentives of truth."
Misinformation is extremely personal to the duke, who has seen people close to him deeply hurt by rumors created online or by the media. "My experience has been more pre-social media around the UK press, who sadly conflate profit with purpose, and news with entertainment, and they don't report the news, they create it," he said. "And they've successfully turned fact-based news into opinion-based gossip with devastating consequences for the country, so I know the story all too well. I lost my mother to this self-manufactured rabidness, and obviously I'm determined not to lose the mother to my children to the same thing."
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