Prince Harry knows a thing or two about the pitfalls of social media. A source close to the royal family told The Times of London that it's “very unlikely” that Harry and Meghan Markle will have an online presence because of the“hate” they’ve received. In the aftermath of the Capitol riot earlier this month, Harry spoke to Fast Company about how he believes “dominant online platforms have contributed to and stoked the conditions for a crisis of hate, a crisis of health and a crisis of truth.”
On January 6, Trump’s supporters breaching the U.S. Capitol building. In the attack, people were injured, killed, and high-ranking politicians' lives were threatened. Harry is drawing a connection between the spread of misinformation and the increase in radicalism.
"We have seen time and again what happens when the real-world cost of misinformation is disregarded,” he continued. “There is no way to downplay this. There was a literal attack on democracy in the United States, organized on social media, which is an issue of violent extremism... Ultimately, it has allowed for completely different versions of reality, with opposing sets of truth, to exist simultaneously. In this, one’s understanding of truth does not have to be based in fact, because there’s always an ability to furnish some form of 'proof' to reinforce that version of 'truth.' I believe this is the opposite of what we should want from our collective online community. The current model sorts and separates rather than bringing us together; it drowns out or even eliminates healthy dialogue and reasonable debate; it strips away the mutual respect we should have for each other as citizens of the same world."
After the riot, Trump was blocked on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and the FBI is also using social media to find the rioters and make arrests since many were sharing their plans online.
