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Prince Harry: Misinformation is a global humanitarian crisis

He spoke about the misinformation that he characterized as a “global humanitarian crisis” Prince Harry who participated in the discussion on “The Internet Lie Machine” organized online in the context of the RE-WIRED conference of Wired magazine.

“I have personally experienced it all these years and now I am watching it happen worldwide. The scariest part is that you do not have to be online to be affected by it. It is important to recognize that this problem did not come from social media. “I learned very early on that the motives for publishing are not necessarily in line with the motives of the truth,” he said.

The youngest son of Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana and his wife, Megan Markle, have said in the past that they have been unjustly targeted by UK tabloids, and have even issued a statement warning them not to cooperate with journalists.

“They confuse profit with purpose and news with entertainment”

“Unfortunately, they confuse profit with purpose and news with entertainment,” said Prince Harry. “They do not broadcast the news, they create it and they have adapted the news based on facts to gossip based on opinions. “I lost my mother from this and obviously I am determined not to lose the mother of my children from the same thing,” he underlined, as broadcast by the Athens News Agency.

In the discussion it was mainly examined how the misinformation can spread quickly on social media, especially Twitter and Facebook.

“In a single family you can have three or four versions of reality,” said Prince Harry. This is not a case of “this could happen to you”, it is already happening to you. “We can all feed it if we do not know it, but if we know our digital diet, we can be more aware of what we transmit, what we do not, what we consume and how it affects the way we think.”

The internet, he added, “is defined by hatred, division and lies.”

The Duke of Sussex also cited recent data from Twitter analytics service Bot Sentinel showing that the majority of hatred comes from a small number of accounts.

“People are prone and vulnerable to the trend, desperate to be a part of something,” Prince Harry said, citing “Megxit” as an example.

“The term ‘Megxit’ was a half-hearted term coined by a troll“, was supported by journalists covering the royal family and developed in the mainstream media,” he said. “When a lie is spread on social media, it is dangerous. But when the same lie is given credibility by journalists or publishers, it is immoral and, in my opinion, an abuse of power. “If the media is supposed to hold us accountable, to whom are they accountable?”

Asked about the attack on the Capitol on January 6, Prince Harry said he was talking to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and warned him that his platform had been used to plan the attack.

“I warned Jack that there was a coup the day before (January 5) and I have not heard from him since,” said Prince Harry.

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