Prince Harry says he warned Twitter CEO that a coup was about to happen a day before the Capitol riot
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex gesture during their visit to Canada House in thanks for the warm Canadian hospitality and support they received during their recent stay in Canada, on January 7, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
WPA Pool
LONDON — Prince Harry has revealed he told Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey that his platform was allowing a coup to be staged ahead of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
Speaking on a virtual panel for the RE:WIRED conference Tuesday, the Duke of Sussex said: “Jack and I were emailing each other prior to January 6 when I warned him his platform was allowing a coup to be staged.”
He added: “That email was sent the day before and then it happened, and I haven’t heard from him since.”
The prince said he has not met Dorsey in person. Twitter declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.
The Capitol building was stormed by a group of Donald Trump supporters. In the weeks prior to the Capitol riot, there were calls for violence against Congress and the police on social media.
Harry criticized Twitter and Facebook for allowing misinformation to spread on their platforms, adding that the scale of the problem is terrifying and no one is safe from it. It’s ruining lives and destroying families, he said.
“I learned from a very early age that the incentives of publishing are not necessarily aligned with the incentives of truth,” he said, adding that the U.K. press conflates profit with purpose and news with entertainment.
He added: “I know this story all too well. I lost my mother to this self-manufactured rabidness and obviously I’m determined not to lose the mother of my children to the same thing.”
Harry said his household won’t be on social media “until things change” but he believes change is possible. “We’ve been led to believe that this challenge is too big to fix or is too big to solve,” he said. “What I’ve learned over the last six months, as part of the Aspen commission, is that simply isn’t true.”
Small number of accounts cause most chaos
Harry said a small number of social media accounts are responsible for a vast chunk of misinformation, which are allowed to “create a huge amount of chaos online and disruption without any consequence whatsoever.”
He cited an independent report that found that more than 70% of the hate speech about his wife Meghan can be traced to fewer than 50 accounts, adding that British journalists interact and amplify what he described as hate and lies.
“The term ‘Megxit’ was and is a misogynistic term and it was created by a troll, amplified by royal correspondents,” he said. “It grew and grew and grew onto mainstream media.”
On Facebook, Harry said a dozen accounts are responsible for over 65% of made up and harmful misinformation. “Yet they’re still there,” he said.
People are being “enlisted” when it comes to the media and social media because they want to believe in something now more than ever, Harry argued.
The prince also took aim at YouTube, pointing to a report that found 70% of videos on the platform were in violation of YouTube’s own policies on misinformation.
Facebook and YouTube did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
