Meghan Markle Called Out The Lack Of “Humanity” On Social Media At SXSW 2024

The South by Southwest conference returned to Austin, Texas, on International Women’s Day, and opening day featured some big firepower. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, participated in the day’s keynote panel alongside actor Brooke Shields, journalist Katie Couric, and author Nancy Wang Yuen. In their conversation — “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen” — Meghan spoke about her experiences facing toxicity on social media and called out the lack of “humanity” she sees in digital spaces as her husband, Prince Harry, supported her from the audience.

Calling Out Toxicity

Moderator Errin Haines asked Meghan about dealing with the vitriol she’s faced, and Meghan was frank about needing distance from social media. “I keep my distance from it right now, just for my own well-being,” she said. However, it hit her hard when she was pregnant with her two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, she recalled.

“As we look at what’s happening in social media, there is so much work to be done in terms of keeping people safe,” Meghan said. “That starts as we see what’s happening with children and their exposure to things. But also just creating these habits — that, what I find the most disturbing, frankly, especially as a supporter of women, is how much of the hate is women completely spewing that to other women. And I cannot make sense of that.”

Making It Make Sense

Meghan pointed to two big areas where she believes change needs to happen: within boardrooms to tackle social media toxicity on a systemic level and among all of us to create a cultural shift. For the average social media user, she posed multiple pointed questions: “If you’re reading something terrible, terrible about a woman, why are you sharing it with your friends? Why are you choosing to put that out in the world? What if it was your friend or your mom or your daughter? You wouldn’t do it.”

She went on to say that there’s a piece “so lost right now in what’s happening in the digital space and certain sectors in the media”: “We have forgotten about our humanity, and that has got to change,” she said. “Because I understand there’s a bottom line, and I understand that a lot of money is being made there. But even if it’s making dollars, it doesn’t make sense.”

Ongoing Action

Meghan and Harry’s nonprofit organization, The Archewell Foundation, co-hosted the panel as part of their ongoing efforts to uplift and unite communities. The Sussexes have also spent years calling for changes in the social media sphere to address harassment, misinformation, and division. Harry explained why in a letter published by FastCompany in January 2021, expressing his concerns about “a crisis of hate, a crisis of health, and a crisis of truth.”

The couple has personally stayed off social media since they exited their roles as senior royals in March 2020, and it looks like they haven’t yet seen enough changes to want to rejoin.