Online abuse leads to breakdown of social cohesion, says Prince Harry after UK riots

Duke of Sussex speaks out at online safety summit during visit to Bogota, Colombia

The Duke of Sussex has warned that the ongoing spread of fake news and abuse online means that social cohesion has “completely broken down”, after riots swept the country.
Prince Harry, speaking at an online safety summit in Bogotá, Colombia, said that 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 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, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, 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 that 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 that 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 that Keir Starmer was considering sending far-Right rioters to “emergency detainment camps” in the Falklands.
Musk, the owner of X, deleted his post after about 30 minutes but not before it had been seen nearly two million times.
Meanwhile, the Duchess warned that everyone had either fallen victim to cyberbullying or knew someone who had suffered, noting that 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, me and my wife 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 will remain 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 the International Afro-descendant Women’s Day on July 25.
Although the Duchess could not attend, she expressed a desire to visit Colombia, and Ms Marquez seized the opportunity.
On Thursday, the vice-president revealed that 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.”