Prince Harry has denied that he and Meghan Markle have 'quit' social media, following reports.
A couple of weeks ago, The Sunday Times reported that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had no plans to use social media as a tool to communicate either their plans with their new foundation Archewell or return to social media to update followers on their personal lives.
The report attributed much of this to Meghan and Harry's disillusionment with trolling and the online hate they have received which was predominantly unfairly and ruthlessly targeted at the Duchess of Sussex.
However, Harry has now responded to these reports in an interview with Fast Company when asked about how he and Meghan plan on using social media in the future.
'It’s funny you should ask because ironically, we woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago to hear that a Rupert Murdoch newspaper said we were evidently quitting social media,' the 36-year-old said. 'That was "news" to us, bearing in mind we have no social media to quit, nor have we for the past 10 months.
'... We will revisit social media when it feels right for us—perhaps when we see more meaningful commitments to change or reform—but right now we’ve thrown much of our energy into learning about this space and how we can help.'
Harry and Meghan previously communicated to followers on their @sussexroyal Instagram account, which broke records for its rapid accumulation of followers back in April, 2019 just before they got married (until Jennifer Aniston joining the platform dethroned them six months later).
Their last post was in March 2020, shortly before they officially stepped back from their roles as senior royals (which they confirmed in a statement via Instagram in January 2020) and relocated to California. The couple still have more than 10 million followers on the platform.
In the recent interview, Harry also reflected on the treatment of his wife, attributing this to social media latching onto perpetuated mistruths about the couple. 'That false narrative became the mothership for all of the harassment you’re referring to. It wouldn’t have even begun had our story just been told truthfully,' he said.
In October, Meghan said she was the most 'trolled person in the entire world' in 2019, saying the abuse she received was 'almost unsurvivable' during a podcast appearance for World Mental Health Day.
'I don't care if you're 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren't true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging,' she told the Teenage Therapy podcast.
Aside from the issue of whether the royal couple are leaving social media behind, both Harry and Meghan have been vocal about the need for social media organisations to take accountability and implement reforms in the area of dealing with fake news, the decline of truth and online harassment and hate.
Harry reflected on the recent Capitol riots - spearheaded by a right-wing violent mob - elsewhere in the interview saying: 'We have seen time and again what happens when the real-world cost of misinformation is disregarded. There is no way to downplay this. There was a literal attack on democracy in the United States, organised on social media, which is an issue of violent extremism.'
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Olivia Blair is Entertainment Editor (Luxury) at Hearst UK, working across ELLE, Esquire and Harper's Bazaar. Olivia covers all things entertainment and has interviewed the likes of Margot Robbie, Emma Stone, Michaela Coel and Ryan Gosling over the years.
