Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, says that his lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch‘s U.K. news outlets are about “truth and accountability.”
Speaking to Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Times Dealbook Summit Wednesday, Prince Harry said of the lawsuit — which is focused on the phone hacking scandal that rocked the world — is about securing accountability for the victims who are not as powerful as he is: “I am the last person that can actually achieve [accountability],” he said.
“The scale of the coverup is so large, that people need to see it for themselves,” Harry said, adding that the details of the coverup “will be the piece that really shocks the world.”
The prince also had sharp words about the media — not just the U.K. tabloids, but also mainstream legacy media, as well as social platforms that he said foment “reckless speech.”
“Ninety-seven to 98 percent of the utter nonsense that is written I either don’t know about or I just have to ignore,” Harry said, adding with a smile: “Never Google yourself.” (Google CEO Sundar Pichai just so happened to be the speaker appearing onstage after Harry left.)
Harry said that there is “perhaps a hidden agenda in some mainstream media, and some social media. It’s a like a competition for who can hide the truth or lie or mislead us more.”
“I have seen stories written about myself that aren’t exactly based on reality,” he said. “When you grow up in that environment, you do find yourself questioning thee validity of the information, but also what other people are thinking about as well.”
As he noted, he speaks from personal experience, calling back to his childhood, when his mother Princess Diana was killed in a car crash while being chased by paparazzi.
“When you are kind of trapped within this bubble, it kind of feels like there is no way out. I was a kid, I felt hopeless,” he said.
Prince Harry, of course, is also a part of the media, with his and his wife Meghan Markle‘s Archewell holding a TV and film deal with Netflix. They previously had an audio deal with Spotify, which ended last year.
He says the current media environment is a mess, with consumers understandably not sure what to believe.
“Our need for credible information is so important, more important now than ever,” he said. “We have elements of the mainstream media trying to redefine public interest for their own interests, and we have social media platforms trying to redefine free speech for their own interests.”
Indeed, social platforms were of particular interest, with Harry arguing that social platforms making billions of dollars off of consumers “should be held accountable” for negative consequences that stem from their use. He does not use social media personally, he said.
“It is not a coincidence that the world has become more volatile, more divided, since social media has come around over the last 20 years,” Harry said, taking aim at claims from the likes of Elon Musk and others who claim that free speech on social media is the most pressing issue of the moment. “The moment that you start normalizing hate speech, aren’t you taking free speech away from so many other people?”
It is, as he acknowledged to Sorkin, a “difficult” problem to solve.
“Some people don’t trust what they read, some people question it. I wish sometimes that more people would question it,” Harry said, adding in a joking tone that “I have no doubt that everything that we have spoken about in the past 20 minutes will be spun or twisted against me.”
But he was certain about one thing: He and Meghan Markle have no plans to leave the U.S., even as Donald Trump prepares to take office next year.
“I very much enjoy living here and bringing my kids up here. I feel that it is the life my mum wanted for me,” Harry said, adding that he particularly cares about being “able to do the things I can do with my kids that I would not be able to do in the U.K.”