Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have criticised Mark Zuckerberg for “contributing to the global mental health crisis” after Meta (formerly Facebook) abolished fact-checking and restricted free speech.
A week after Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company would return to focusing on free speech, Prince Harry and his wife issued a statement on the Archewell Foundation website criticizing the decision.
“Regardless of whether you are left, right, or in the middle, the latest news from Meta about policy changes is deeply troubling to all of us,” they said in a statement earlier this week.
Prince Harry, 40, and Meghan Markle, 43, said the new initiative would create “more abuse” that would “silence speech and expression, not promote it”.
Both pointed out that the removal of fact-checking was “certainly” a response to “political windfalls,” referring to Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, which Meta had “once again abandoned public safety in the pursuit of profit, chaos, and control.”
They also added that Meta now prioritizes “those who use the platform to spread hate, lies, and division that harms others.”
Harry and Meghan support “accountability, protecting the integrity of information and protecting all communities in the digital age”.
“We are particularly concerned by plans to abandon commitments to diversity and equity, along with internal policy changes that weaken protections for minority communities. “These decisions reflect what experts, whistleblowers and families have said in hearings about online harms, particularly in relation to child safety. To ignore this is to deliberately put people at risk and contribute to a global mental health crisis,” their statement said.
According to Harry and the Suits actress , Meta’s policy change would create “an environment where abuse and hate speech silence and threaten the voices of the entire community that makes up a healthy democracy.”
The pair then urged Meta to “reconsider and restore policies to protect all uses” and called on “company leaders to maintain their commitment to integrity, safety, and cybersecurity,” while also applauding those who “refuse to succumb to bullying.”
On January 7, Mark Zuckerberg released a video claiming that Facebook does “too much censorship,” so the company will remove fact-checking features and restrict freedom of speech.
Meta’s CEO said it would remove “restrictions on many topics like immigration and gender that are not in line with mainstream discourse.”
Since the announcement, Zuckerberg has been criticized for the decision, with Meta executives saying he was “bowing to political pressure” ahead of Trump’s inauguration on January 20. The 40-year-old businessman was spotted dining with the new president at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, in November 2023.
Meanwhile, Prince Harry and his wife concluded: “We feel there is no reason for this industry to behave as if it is exempt from the ethical and moral standards to which everyone else adheres.”
