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Meghan Markle said she experienced “cruel” online harassment while she was pregnant with her two children.
Speaking at a panel at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, on Friday, Markle said she is staying “distanced from (social media) right now just for my own well-being.”
The “most” social media and online “bullying and abuse” she said she experienced was when she was pregnant with her children, Archie and Lilibet, and while having a newborn.
Markle had her first child with Prince Harry, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, on May 6, 2019.
The couple then welcomed Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor two years later on June 4, 2021.
“You really understand why people would be so hateful,” Markle said of the social media harassment she experienced. “It’s not malicious, it’s cruel.”
Markle acknowledged that there is “a lot of work to do in terms of keeping people safe” in the current social media landscape, especially considering what children are exposed to, while also appreciating the dichotomy that can exist on networking platforms. social.
Using the panel, which was streaming on YouTube, as an example, Markle said it’s “fantastic” that it’s on the video platform because people “will have access to hear all this brilliance and all this information,” but “at the same time “It’s a platform that has a lot of hate and rhetoric and encourages people to create pages where they can produce very, very inciting comments and conspiracy theories that can have a tremendously negative effect on someone’s mental and physical safety.”
She also highlighted “how much of the hate comes from women who completely throw it at other women.”
Markle said there are many women in high-level executive positions “who are great advocates for women, who are great philanthropists” and yet “they are allowing this type of behavior to run rampant.”
“At a certain point, they have to leave what is done behind what is said and really make some changes on a systemic level,” Markle said.
But, she added, average social media users also have work to do to ensure safe spaces online, noting that “systemic change has to happen at the same time as cultural change occurs,” calling out women who are ” reading something terrible.” , terrible thing about a woman” and then share it.
“I think that’s the piece that’s so missing right now, and what’s happening in the digital space and in certain sectors of media: We’ve forgotten our humanity,” Markle said.
“And that has to change, because I understand there’s a bottom line, and I understand there’s a lot of money being made there, but even if it’s about making dollars, it doesn’t make sense.”
Markle and Prince Harry moved to California in 2020, giving up their life in England and distancing themselves from the British royal family. Since then, they have spoken openly about how the press, particularly the paparazzi, has infiltrated their lives in both the United States and the United Kingdom.