Reuters —
Britain’s Prince Harry on Thursday praised Australia’s “magnificent” leadership in curbing harmful social media use among teenagers as his wife Meghan spoke out about a decade of online abuse.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are on a four-day trip to Australia covering topics such as sport, mental health and veterans affairs.
In December, Australia became the first country in the world to ban children under 16 from social media, blocking them from platforms such as TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube, META.O’s Instagram and Facebook, a law that has been imitated around the world.
“Now we can sit here and debate the pros and cons of a ban. I’m not here to judge it. I’m speaking from a responsibility and leadership standpoint. It’s epic,” Prince Harry said in a discussion with young people hosted by Australian mental health organization Bateel in Melbourne on Thursday.
In the same conversation, Meghan said she had been the target of persistent online bullying.
“Every day for 10 years now, I was bullied and attacked, and I was the most trolled person in the entire world,” she said.
The couple resigned as active members of the British royal family and moved to the United States in 2020, citing a desire to become financially independent and to escape what they called media intrusion into their private lives.
The couple last visited Australia in 2018 as members of the royal family and announced Meghan’s first pregnancy just hours after arriving in Sydney.
In Australia, where Britain’s King Charles is the head of state, supporters of the republican system are a significant minority, but Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan have received mixed reactions.
Although the couple’s trip was privately funded, local media reported that some of the police costs for the visit would be paid for by Australian taxpayers, prompting a protest petition signed by more than 45,000 people.
In contrast to their previous visit, the Sussexes are also working on what their office calls “private meetings and special projects” while in Australia.
While Prince Harry met with veterans on Wednesday, Meghan filmed an episode of cooking show MasterChef Australia, where she was a guest judge.
She also co-hosts a luxury wellness retreat in Sydney on the weekends. Tickets for this event, which includes yoga, manifestation and sound healing, start from AUD 2,699 ($1,912) per person.
