Next week, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be honored at Project Healthy Minds’ gala. They are receiving the Humanitarians of the Year award, specifically for their work creating The Parents Network, which focuses on how parents can help create healthier online spaces for their kids. The Parents Network also works with parents and guardians who have lost children to dangerous online spaces. Well, King Charles decided to copykeen the Sussexes and express his concern too!
King Charles has voiced deep concern about the impact of social media on children, echoing recent calls for stronger online safeguards from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
The monarch spoke privately with Reverend Tommy MacNeil, who runs the Shed Project mental health charity on the Isle of Lewis, during a 40-minute meeting at Balmoral Castle on Sunday. Rev MacNeil, who preached at the morning service attended by the King and Queen, said Charles was “very concerned about the negative impact social media was having on young people in so many ways” and “really understood the problems and the difficulties involved in combating them.”
“He was very engaged and 100 per cent appreciative of the work we are doing,” Rev MacNeil told the Telegraph. “Young people today are growing up in a different world to their parents. The stuff they are accessing on their phones is frightening.”
He added: “King Charles was clearly very concerned about the whole issue and negative influences on young people from social media. It is almost impossible to police social media, so we need to find ways to combat that.”
Queen Camilla did not attend the post-service discussion at Balmoral.
The King’s comments come after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex highlighted similar dangers in April when they unveiled the Lost Screen Memorial in New York City. The installation, made of 50 smartphone-shaped light boxes, honours children whose families believe online content contributed to their deaths.
Granted, this is a big enough issue where all public figures should be speaking about it regularly. There should be more recognition of the dangers of social media and more public condemnation of dangerous and toxic online spaces. It’s not an issue which solely “belongs” to the Sussexes. That being said, it’s pretty rich coming from Charles. The left-behinds have spent years staying silent as dangerous online royalist communities threaten, harass and smear the Sussexes. To this day, there has never been a palace condemnation of those spaces and those people.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.
