Society completely broken by online lies, says Prince Harry after UK riots

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their Colombia visit on Friday. Photo / Eric Charbonneau
The Duke of Sussex said people “are no longer debating facts” at an online safety summit during a visit to Bogota, Colombia.
The Duke of Sussex has warned the ongoing spread of fake news and abuse online means social cohesion has “completely broken down”, after riots swept across the UK.
Prince Harry, speaking at an online safety summit in Bogota, Colombia, said lies shared online transferred to action on the streets.
He said: “What happens online within a matter of minutes transfers to the streets. People are acting on information that isn’t true. It comes down to all of us to be able to spot the true from the fake.”
He added: “In an ideal world, those with positions of influence would take more responsibility. We are no longer debating facts.”
“For as long as people are allowed to spread lies, abuse, harass, then social cohesion as we know it has completely broken down.”
His comments came after riots and disorder swept across the UK this month following the killing of three girls in Southport.
Rioting by far-right mobs erupted following the deaths of Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, who were killed on July 29 at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop.
In the hours before the first riot in Southport, misinformation had spread online, including false claims the suspect was a Muslim migrant who had arrived in a small boat.
Both the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spoke at the two-and-a-half-hour Responsible Digital Future forum on the first day of their visit to Colombia, which will touch on themes of anti-colonialism and female empowerment.
The Duke’s comments were interpreted by some as a veiled swipe at Elon Musk, who was criticised for sharing a fake Telegraph article claiming UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was considering sending far-right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands.
Musk, the owner of social media platform X, deleted his post after about 30 minutes, but not before it had been seen nearly two million times.
Meanwhile, the Duchess warned everyone had either fallen victim to cyberbullying or knew someone who had suffered, noting such behaviour was not restricted to those from certain backgrounds or sections of society.
“It doesn’t matter where you live. It doesn’t matter who you are,” she said. “Either you personally or someone you know is a victim to what’s happening online. And that’s something we can actively work on every day to remedy.”
She added: “We should model how we want our kids to be raised and for the world in which we raise them.”
The Duke said: “With the Archewell Foundation, [my wife and I] believe that information integrity is a fundamental right.”
Among the guests was Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winner who joined the Sussexes’ Time100 Talk on Engineering a Better World in 2020, and representatives from campaign groups such as ReThink Words and Encode Justice.
The Duke and Duchess flew from Los Angeles to Bogota, where they remained on Friday before visiting the walled town of San Basilio de Palenque, the first free African town in the Americas, near the coastal city of Cartagena, as well as Cali, a city known for its salsa dancing, over the weekend.
The Duke and Duchess are being hosted during the four-day visit by Francia Marquez, Colombia’s vice-president, who is known as a vocal champion of Afro-Colombians and women’s rights.
She got in touch with the Duchess last year to ask for her support, as a woman of African descent, in celebrating International Afro-descendant Women’s Day on July 25.
Although the Duchess could not attend, she expressed a desire to visit Colombia, and Marquez seized the opportunity.
On Thursday, the vice-president revealed she had been prompted to make contact with the couple after being “deeply moved” by their Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, which streamed in December 2022 and focused heavily on the impact of racism and the legacy of British colonialism.
She said of Meghan’s contribution: “It motivated me to say, ‘This is a woman who deserves to visit our country and share her story’, and undoubtedly, her visit will strengthen so many women around the world.”