Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have called for stronger protections for children when it comes to social media. In an interview with BBC Breakfast, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said they want more to be done to protect children online, with Harry saying he is “grateful” that his children Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, are currently too young to use social platforms.
The couple, who unveilved a memorial in New York City yesterday dedicated to children whose deaths are linked to the dangers of the internet, have been supporting grieving families. The installation being unveiled by the couple, called the Lost Screen Memorial, has been made from 50 smartphones, with each one displaying the screen photo of a child whose life has been lost as a result of the harms of the internet.
As reported by BBC, the children’s images had been shared by parents who are part of the Parents’ Network – a support network for grieving parents set up by Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation.
Talking to the BBC, Harry said: “We want to make sure that things are changed so that… no more kids are lost to social media. Life is better off social media.
“The easiest thing to say is to keep your kids away from social media. The sad reality is the kids who aren’t on social media normally get bullied at school because they can’t be part of the same conversation as everybody else.
“We’re just grateful that our kids are too young to be on social media at this point.”
Meghan added: “I think in many ways what we see through these parents is the hope and the promise of something better, because… they just want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
As well as supporting impacted families, the duke and duchess have also backed calls to technology firms to allow grieving parents to be allowed access to information on the phones of children who have died. At the moment, some firms do not allow this, citing privacy concerns.
Harry told BBC Breakfast: “You are telling a parent, you are telling a dad and a mum that they can’t have the details of what their kid was up to on social media because of the privacy of their kid. It’s wrong.”
The couple arrived in New York earlier this week to attend Time100 Summit, where Meghan was a speaker at the event.
The installation unveiled by the couple will be open for 24 hours.
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