Prince Harry discussed about the term 'Megxit' calling it 'Misogynistic'
by Ana Walia | Wed, 10 Nov 2021 16:46:02 GMT
Prince Harry mentioned during a panel discussion about the term 'Megxit'. Image Source: News.com 

After two years of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle deciding to leave their royal status, Prince Harry is speaking out about the way their decision was covered by the media, which was showcased in a negative light.

During a panel at Wired’s Re: Wired Conference, Prince Harry was invited as a guest, where he discussed the impact of trolls and disinformation have had on society and on his life. According to Prince Harry, the use of the phrase ‘Megxit’ by the media is one of the reasons why their decision was perceived as negative across the world. He said, "Maybe people know this, and maybe they don’t, but the term Megxit was or is a misogynistic term, and it was created by a troll, amplified by royal correspondents, and it grew and grew and grew into mainstream media. But it began with a troll."

In his conversation with Wired’s editor, Steven Levy, Prince Harry discussed that, according to studies conducted by Bot Sentinel, more than 70% of the hate speech about Meghan Markle was spread by fewer than 50 accounts, and what upset the couple was the fact that British journalists who were interacting with them were amplifying the lies, repeating them as truth.

In one of the articles published by Vanity Fair, it has been reported that the term, ‘Megxit’ was established two years before the couple decided to seek financial independence and split their time between the U.K. and North America, and it has a deep-rooted meaning mainly by accounts that trafficked in racist and or sexist abuse.

Prince Harry also took a dig at the traditional media, mentioning Logan Roy, the patriarch of HBO's Succession, in his explanation of the news media's role in propagating clickbait. Harry said, "The term 'Megxit' was or is a misogynistic term that was created by a troll, amplified by world correspondents, and it grew and grew and grew in the mainstream media. But it all began with a troll. I lost my mother (Princess Diana) to this self-manufactured rabidness, and obviously, I'm determined not to lose the mother of my children to the same thing".

Prince Harry was invited to the panel due to his involvement in the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder, and he gave a little chuckle when Levy mentioned that the project sounded like a Don DeLillo invention. In the discussion, Harry shared some of the experiences that he had had through his work while working on a committee. He quoted, "We’ve been led to believe it is too big to fix, or too big to solve, but what I've learned over the last six months on the Aspen commission is that this simply isn’t true. Just like a virus, there are super-spreaders to monitor and contain, and even the word "super-spreader" was just added to the dictionary last week, and for good reason. We know that a few accounts are allowed to create a huge amount of chaos and destruction online without any consequences at all. "

Harry also shared that he and Meghan Markle are determined that they will not create any social media accounts until things change. This comes after Prince Harry stated that the internet has been defined by hate, division, and lies and that this is not the ideal way to go about things, especially for parents with children. The Internet currently allows the future to be defined by the here and now, which is profit and greed. He closed with a request for employees of news organizations, "Collectively as human beings, we have the ability to make change in our media system. People, now more than ever, want and need truth, they want and need trust, and they want and need transparency", he said.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who have moved to Montecito, Calif., with their 1-year-old son Archie, will use a production business they formed to develop "documentaries, docuseries, feature films, scripted shows, and children's programming," according to the New York Times.

In a statement to the New York Times, Meghan and Harry said, "Our focus will be on generating material that both informs and inspires. As new parents, it's also crucial for us to create inspiring family programs." However, there have been rumblings from royal sources that they shouldn't be accepting money from Netflix because it continues to profit from Princess Diana's death by streaming "The Crown".  The upcoming fifth season of the show will chronicle her darkest days, including her "Panorama" interview, which took place amid the breakup of her marriage to Prince Charles.

According to the UK's Sunday Times, British filmmaker and socialite Jemima Khan — a close friend of Princess Diana's — withdrew from helping to script the performance over the weekend because the subject was not being treated "as properly or compassionately" as she had anticipated. "It was "incredibly important to me that the final years of my friend's life be portrayed accurately and with compassion, as has not always happened in the past," the beautiful blonde told the New York Times of her friendship with Diana.

One senior TV industry source, who has worked with Netflix, told Page Six this "To me, their silence is deafening. It might be easier to explain their position if we had seen the fruits of their labor on Netflix, but to date, nothing has been released, which is leaving some raised eyebrows in the industry as to what Netflix is exactly getting out of their investment. "

Meghan Markle is working on an animated Netflix series alongside David Furnish, Elton John's husband and Harry is working on an Invictus Games series. According to Page Six, the royal family as a whole has taken a harsh stance against "The Crown," with most refusing to watch it. Last November, UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden stated that the drama series' fictional sequences were so harmful to the royal family that viewers should be warned at the beginning of each episode that it was not "actual."

"They don't claim to be news," Prince Harry told James Corden in February, confirming that he watched the show. It's a work of fiction. However, it is only loosely based on the facts. Of course, that's not exactly correct, "but it gives you a general notion of what that lifestyle, the pressures of putting duty and service before family and everything else, may result from it."

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