Prince Harry has said he warned the chief executive of Twitter ahead of the January 6 Capitol riots how the social media platform was being used to stage political unrest in the US capital.

Harry made the comments on Tuesday while taking part in an online panel on misinformation in California. He said he had made his concerns known via email to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey the day before the riot.

“Jack and I were emailing each other prior to January 6 where I warned him that his platform was allowing a coup to be staged,” Harry said at the RE:WIRED tech forum. “That email was sent the day before – and then it happened and I haven’t heard from him since.”

Twitter declined to comment.

Social media sites have come under fire for not doing enough to halt the spread of misinformation and inciteful content. The storming of the US Capitol by supporters of former US president Donald Trump is often cited as an example of the consequences of allowing hate to fester.

Big tech in general has been accused of putting growth and profits ahead of public safety.

Harry accused Facebook of misleading “billions of people” with misinformation about Covid-19 and climate change. He also targeted YouTube, saying many videos spreading Covid-19 misinformation were left up despite violating the site’s own policies.

“And worse, they came to the users via the recommendation tool within YouTube’s own algorithm versus anything that the user was actually searching for,’’ he said.

“It shows really that it can be stopped but also they didn’t want to stop it because it affects their bottom line.” (© Washington Post)

© Washington Post