Harry and Meghan Say No Parent Can Keep Their Child Safe From Social Media
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have issued an emotional statement saying that parents are powerless to keep children “safe” from social media platforms.
The statement on their Archewell website comes after Mark Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs appeared Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating allegations that children have suffered or died because of exposure to online content.
“We applaud the bravery and determination of the thousands of parents around the country whose advocacy resulted in this hearing,” the couple said. “Over the past few years we have spent time with many of these families, listening to their heartache and their hopes for the urgent change that is needed in the online space.
Harry and Meghan’s statement was illustrated with an image taken at the Senate hearing, which showed parents of children who had died holding up images of their children while Zuckerberg addressed them.
Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes to Parents in Senate Child Safety Hearing
“This is an issue that transcends division and party lines, as we saw today at the Senate hearing,” Harry and Meghan said. “The best parenting in the world cannot keep children safe from these platforms.”
The issue of online harm to children has been a key cause for the couple. Last year, on World Mental Health Day, they hosted a “parents’ summit” called “Mental Wellness in a Digital Age.”
During the congressional hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Meta boss Zuckerberg and others: “I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands. You have a product that’s killing people.”
Zuckerberg stood up at one point to address dozens of parents in the audience, some of whom held up pictures of teenagers who had killed themselves following abuse on social media and said: “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through… It’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.”
Lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg and the CEOs of TikTok, Discord, X, and Snap at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing called “Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis.”
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