The Duke of Cambridge has criticised social media companies for failing to tackle fake news, privacy issues and cyber-bullying. In a speech at the BBC, Prince William said social networks had allowed “misinformation and conspiracy to pollute the public sphere”.
He warned that tech firms’ “self-image is so grounded in their positive power for good that they seem unable to engage in constructive discussion about the social problems they are creating”. The prince and the Duchess of Cambridge visited the BBC to try a new internet safety app, meeting children and parents who helped design it.
Prince William said the tools used to celebrate milestones “can also be used to normalise speech that is filled with bile and hate”, and that websites intended to connect can create “profound feelings of loneliness and inadequacy”. He urged firms to reject “the false choice of profits over values”.
The BBC put the criticism to Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who acknowledged trade-offs between privacy and safety. Another executive said artificial intelligence was being used to root out unacceptable behaviour, but cyber-bullying was harder to identify due to its personal nature.
The prince expressed disappointment that the taskforce he launched in 2016, involving Facebook, Snapchat and Google, had failed to achieve more. His remarks mark a shift in tone from co-operation to accusing tech leaders of posturing and prioritising shareholders over users.
