‘Epic’ leadership: Harry, Meghan praise Australian social media laws
Britain’s Prince Harry on Thursday praised Australia’s “epic” leadership on curbing harmful social media use for teens, as his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, spoke of a decade of online abuse.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are on a four-day trip to Australia, with engagements covering sport, mental health and veterans’ affairs.
Australia in December became the first country in the world to ban social media for children under 16, blocking them from platforms including TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, in legislation being copied around the world.
“Now we can sit here and debate the pros and cons of a ban – I’m not here to judge that. All I will say is from a responsibility and leadership standpoint – epic,” Harry said in a discussion with young people organised by Australian mental health organisation Batyr in Melbourne on Thursday.
Meghan told the same discussion that she had been the target of relentless online bullying.
“For now, 10 years, every day for 10 years, I have been bullied and attacked. And I was the most trolled person in the entire world,” she said.
The couple stepped down as working members of the British royal family and moved to the US in 2020, citing a desire to be financially independent and to escape what they characterised as media intrusion into their private lives.
They last visited Australia in 2018 while still working royals, announcing Meghan’s first pregnancy hours after arriving in Sydney.
- Reporting by Alasdair Pal in Sydney; Editing by Kate Mayberry, of Reuters.
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