‘We’ve forgotten our humanity’: Meghan Markle on social media toxicity

Meghan Markle is reflecting on the trolling she got on social media when she was pregnant with Archie and Lilibet. The Duchess of Sussex criticised the ‘endless toxicity’ of the social media platform while speaking on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

During her appearance at the SXSW festival in Austin Texas, Meghan spoke during the panel called “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen.’’

Speaking in front of her husband, Prince Harry and the audience, Markle talked about the negative impact of social media. “Yes, social media is an environment that has a lot of that [toxicity] …I keep my distance from it right now just for my own wellbeing,” she said.

Meghan added how people have forgotten humanity in the digital space as she shared the ‘’bullying and abuse’’ that she faced when she was pregnant with Archie and Lili.

“You have to really wrap your head around why people would be so hateful. It’s not catty — it’s cruel,” she said.

“And certainly when you’re pregnant or you have a newborn, as moms you know it’s such a tender and sacred time. And you can either succumb to it or nearly succumb to how painful it is. And maybe in some regards, that mammalian instinct just kicked in: ‘Do everything you can to protect your child’ and as a result protect yourself too,” Meghan added.

The 42-year-old went on to target several platforms for spreading hate and conspiracy theories that may hurt someone’s mental health.

“I cannot make sense of that, because I understand that there are certain platforms, today is a really good example, this is being streamed on one of those platforms, and it’s also fantastic because people are going to have access to hear all of this brilliance and all of this insight, and at the same time, it’s a platform that has quite a bit of hate and rhetoric and incentivizes people 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, on their physical safety,” said Meghan. Apart from Markle, Katie Couric, Brooke Shields, and Nancy Wang Yuen were part of the panel. (Agencies)

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