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<\/p>\nDonning a sombre and razor-sharp designer black suit, Meghan Markle looked dressed for business. Her speech on the devastating effect of social media on kids was emotional and entirely fair.<\/p>\n
Behind her in Geneva\u2019s Place des Nations was the Lost Screen Memorial – an installation of 50 illuminated light boxes, each showing the home-screen photograph of a child who lost their life to online harm.<\/p>\n
No one could fault the sentiment.<\/p>\n
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(Image credit: Harold Cunningham\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n “Children today are being shaped by systems designed to capture attention at any cost: relentless algorithms, exploitative engagement and endless exposure to harmful content that they are not seeking out.”<\/p>\n Few parents would dispute that.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n And yet\u2026 this was not just a message about the evils of the internet. This was the Duchess of Sussex trying to step back into serious public life.<\/p>\n After trying (and some would say failing) to be a lifestyle hostess on the Netflix show With Love, Meghan, selling us jam with her As Ever range and attempting to be a producer, Meghan was asking the world to take her seriously again.<\/p>\n Not as a duchess, not as a fashion horse, but as an advocate.<\/p>\n As someone close to her told me, “Of course she cares about these issues, as all parents do, particularly when she\u2019s personally suffered so much trolling at the hands of social media and the internet.<\/p>\n “She has always held strong opinions and wants to use her platform to drive change.”<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n Indeed, it wasn’t so much her stepping back into the political space as much as the timing that surprised me.<\/p>\n ‘She always saw the Princess as a rival’<\/p>\n For it came in the same week as the Princess of Wales had enjoyed a stunning return to international tours since her cancer diagnosis and treatment two years ago.<\/p>\n As one royal source sniped to me, “It\u2019s almost as if the duchess can\u2019t help herself. Catherine goes to Italy for her work in children\u2019s early years, is greeted by adoring crowds wherever she goes and is feted to the rooftops.<\/p>\n “So then Meghan appears to try and do the same or go one better. I understand that she always saw the princess as a rival, but regardless, she always seems to have to make a point.<\/p>\n “Catherine is learning about best practice in children\u2019s education, whereas Meghan is trying to take on the big tech companies.”<\/p>\n The contrast couldn\u2019t be more marked.<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Samir Hussein – Pool\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n The princess drew genuine crowds – thousands filling the town square in Reggio Emilia, people craning out of windows shouting her name, the streets of a small Italian city brought to a complete halt.<\/p>\n She drew the crowds because of what she represents – the Royal Family.<\/p>\n Meghan, of course, left and for the past six years has been repeatedly telling us that she was silenced. She had so much to say, but according to her, the institution wouldn\u2019t allow her to say it.<\/p>\n Now she wants to make a difference.<\/p>\n ‘Meghan would use her own child on social media just but tell the world that big tech is preying on kids’<\/p>\n Yet it\u2019s harder to take this repositioning seriously due to Meghan\u2019s own use of her children on social media.<\/p>\n The day before she gave her speech, alongside Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, she posted a picture of her daughter Lili, who\u2019s about to turn five, to her 4.5 million followers.<\/p>\n Yes, the adorable redhead had her back to the camera and was sitting on the floor of Meghan\u2019s walk-in wardrobe, surrounded by what looked like thousands of pounds worth of designer clothing (thought to be a Giorgio Armani blazer on the rail, dozens of high-end garments behind her, plus a pair of Dior heels and Manolo Blahniks on the floor).<\/p>\n The caption credited Lilibet as \u2018Mama\u2019s little helper\u2019.<\/p>\n But this is something we\u2019ve seen from Meghan time and time again.<\/p>\n A tease of her children\u2019s faces – a side glimpse, a video of backs of heads in the pumpkin patch, emojis to conceal their faces at Disneyland, a family photo in the garden.<\/p>\n Normally in an apparent bid to drive business for her brand and lifestyle business (the candles are even numbered to mark her children\u2019s dates of birth).<\/p>\n It seemed bizarre to me that Meghan would use her own four-year-old child to encourage interest on her huge social media platform, just as she was about to tell the world that big tech is preying on kids.<\/p>\n Driving engagement was key – and on the very social media platforms that Harry has described as being run by people who are \u2018evil\u2019 and \u2018wicked\u2019 and who \u2018farm children\u2019s minds\u2019 for profit.<\/p>\n Commercialising the royal brand<\/p>\n Harry has complained for years about his life being \u2018commercialised\u2019 since he was a teenager. Yet it seems Meghan is doing similar, I\u2019d argue, to boost her brand.<\/p>\n Her kids have royal titles, have royal names and a monarch as a grandfather. The very thing she claims to hate is the thing she is using to promote herself.<\/p>\n No wonder she wanted to remind the world of her agenda for change.<\/p>\n This feature first appeared in Woman<\/a> magazine. Subscribe now and get your first 6 issues for \u00a31<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donning a sombre and razor-sharp designer black suit, Meghan Markle looked dressed for business. Her speech on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-463791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/wiyiWw4g4LAFwGPKcV7uCd.jpg\")
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