Meghan Markle is opening up about the cruelty directed her way via social media, which she said reached a boiling point during each of her two pregnancies.
The Duchess of Sussex was among the keynote speakers Friday at the “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen” discussion to kick off the 2024 SXSW Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas, where the 42-year-old shared the dangers associated with social media platforms.
The panel — comprised of Meghan, veteran journalist Katie Couric, actress Brooke Shields and author-sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen — was asked by moderator-journalist Errin Haines how they’ve managed the seemingly endless toxicity directed at them on social media, a platform that endlessly seems to target and scrutinize women.
Noting that social media is an environment conducive to hatefulness, Meghan offered specifically when the most hate came her way on social media.
“I keep my distance from it right now just for my own well-being, but the bulk of the bullying and abuse that I was experiencing on social media and online was when I was pregnant with Archie and Lili,” said Meghan, who shares the 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter with Prince Harry.
The idea that someone can have the audacity to spew hate baffled the Duchess.
“You just think about that and to really wrap your head around why people would be so hateful,” she said. “It’s not catty. It’s cruel. And why would would do that, certainly, when you’re pregnant with a newborn, we all know as moms it’s such a tender and sacred time.”
Meghan made sure to highlight the positive impact social media platforms can have, like the panel discussion being streamed live on YouTube. That being said, Meghan underscored that social media platforms can be a cesspool for “hate and rhetoric,” all of which is compounded by platforms incentivizing users “to create pages where they can churn out very, very inciting comments and conspiracy theories that can have a tremendously negative effect on someone’s mental health [and] their physical safety.”
The discussion on social media vitriol comes weeks after Harry scored a legal win in court over a UK tabloid accused of hacking Harry’s phone. Harry struck a settlement against Mirror Group Newspapers, which agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of the settlement.
Amid the settlement, Harry vowed to continue his “mission” to keep the British media in check in the wake of a judge ruling in December that Harry was the victim of phone hacking by the Mirror Group Newspapers.
In late 2021, Meghan also won her lawsuit against Associated Newspapers, earning her financial damages and a front page apology from The Mail on Sunday.
