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Prince Harry: Social media companies treat kids like ‘digital experiments’

prince-harry:-social-media-companies-treat-kids-like-‘digital-experiments’

On Monday, Prince Harry took part in a virtual launch of the Global Child Online Safety Toolkit. Harry partnered with 5Rights Foundation, and Harry spoke via Zoom (or some kind of video conference) about why he cares so much about this. Basically, he says it’s time that social media companies stop using kids as living experiments. We don’t know everything about how social media and dis/misinformation campaigns affect the human brain, but we know enough to say that this sh-t is rewiring us. And the effects are even more profound in children.

Prince Harry is getting real about how the online world affects children — and how his role as a father to Archie Harrison and Lilibet Diana has inspired him to try and make a change. The Duke of Sussex joined 5Rights Foundation as they launched the Global Child Online Safety Toolkit webinar on Monday, speaking to children about how the digital world and social media impact them. During the chat, Harry shared that although his and Meghan Markle’s children Archie, 3, and Lili, who will turn 1 next month, are too young to experience the online world yet, he worries about the future.

“As parents, my wife and I are concerned about the next generation growing up in a world where they are treated as digital experiments for companies to make money and where things like hatred and harm are somehow normalized,” he said. “We want our children and all children to feel empowered to speak up.”

Harry, 37, added, “My two little ones are still at their age of innocence. Sometimes I feel like I can keep them away from the online harm that they could face in the future forever, but I’m learning to know better.”

Prince Harry said that social media “isn’t working and needs to be fixed” as it is meant to “pull us in, keep us scrolling, get us angry or anxious — or make us numb to the world around us.”

“I’m not an expert on law or technology, but I am a father — and I’m lucky enough to be a father with a platform,” he said. “My kids are too young to have experienced the online world yet, and I hope they never have to experience it as it exists now. No kid should have to.”

[From People]

I genuinely feel sorry for parents trying to navigate this sh-t. Especially parents of teenagers, teenagers who are on Instagram, TikTok and maybe even Twitter (although I bet it’s mostly TikTok and the ‘gram these days). Teenagers will say “well, my friends have it” or “I need to be literate in this stuff to have a job,” but as Harry says, the kids are digital experiments. But how to put the genie back in the bottle? That’s the question.

“It is not realistic to protect kids from everything.

We need new laws. We need public pressure. We need strong leadership.”

📢Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, at the @5RightsFound‘s & @GPtoEndViolence‘s event to launch their Child Online Safety Toolkit. pic.twitter.com/OpfD7Ggob1

— End Violence (@GPtoEndViolence) May 16, 2022

Screencap courtesy of The Telegraph/5Rights Foundation. Additional photos courtesy of Instar.