Meghan Markle calls out YouTube during YouTube SXSW stream
"It’s a platform that has quite a bit of hate and rhetoric…that can have a tremendously negative effect on someone’s mental health" Markle said of YouTube
Aux News Meghan Markle
In a case that could be viewed, from a certain light, of someone biting the hand that streams them, former Suits star/retired Duchess/intermittent podcaster Meghan Markle lobbed some criticism at YouTube today—while being streamed by YouTube, as part of its coverage of SXSW.
Markle made a surprise keynote appearance at the conference today, appearing alongside Katie Couric, Brooke Shields, and Nancy Wang Yuen for an event timed to International Women’s Day. Titled “Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead on and off the Screen,” the event put a large amount of focus on the impact of social media, and the various ways it deforms everybody’s brains every single moment of our modern lives.
Describing her own social media experiences, Markle laid out the horror show, saying that, “I keep my distance from it right now for my well-being, but the bulk of the bullying and abuse I was experiencing in social media and online was when I was pregnant with Archie and with Lili, and with a newborn, with each of them.” She added that, “You just think about that and to wrap your head about why people would be so hateful. It’s not catty, it’s cruel. Why you would do that when you’re pregnant or as a mom, at such a tender and sacred time.” She then unleashed what we can objectively categorize as an extremely corny zinger about the monetization of this kind of online abuse: “Even if it’s making dollars, it doesn’t make sense.”
Markle hit the more juicy stuff from there, targeting platforms that propagate the kind of toxicity she was discussing—including calling out, albeit not by name, YouTube, which was streaming the panel:
I cannot make sense of that, because I understand that there are certain platforms, today is a really good example, this is being streamed on one of those platforms, and it’s also fantastic because people are going to have access to hear all of this brilliance and all of this insight, and at the same time, it’s a platform that has quite a bit of hate and rhetoric and incentivizes people to create pages where they can churn out very, very inciting comments and conspiracy theories that can have a tremendously negative effect on someone’s mental health, on their physical safety.
Markle didn’t call out any particular creators by name, although we can’t help but note that her old “pal” Piers Morgan does have a very regular presence on the platform…
[via THR]
41 Comments
And she helps support positive mental health? She needs to piss off.
Please go away, never was gonna be Queen.
I side-eye women and men who always need to bring their children into a conversation whose topic makes them feel vulnerable. Reminds me of the story of a drug dealer who picked up his toddler as a shield right before the cops shot him. “I was pregnant and so terrified!”Most of us could only wish for such a safe and secure environment as these two enjoy. And her own rhetoric: It actually shocks me how stupid this woman thinks the populace is.
Think of someone of average intelligence. Half the populace is below that.
It’s always been difficult for me to accept that but I’m discovering how profoundly dangerous stupid really is and a lot of them seem to be stuck at age 6 or 7.
I don’t think Carlin understood the difference between median and mean, really.
IQ has a normal distribution, mean and median are the same
Can’t like this comment enough.
Never mind, I figured out the star button.
I don’t think Carlin would give a shit.
You should hear Carlin’s “The Seven Data Sets You Can’t Sample on Television.” He really goes off on modes.
You’re describing the median, not the average.
CLASSIC Carlin bit that only literal retards repeat.
Kindergarten Cop was a movie, not a documentary.
You clearly have too high an estimation of the general public’s intelligence if you think she’s talking down to people.I still haven’t figured out why people hate her so much.
I mean she was receiving death threats at the highest while she was pregnant. She’s touching on something a lot deeper there about those threats being connected to her bringing a mixed race child into a colonial family. Comparing Meghan to a drug dealer is a bit of side eye in itself lol.
I know what it’s like to receive death threats. I don’t live in a protected community with an army of supporters.She and her husband are fame whores and parasites, who provoke and invite controversy for attention. That’s all they’ve got: their belief that they are being persecuted. Just stop it.
wishing Meghan somehow had it worse is weird ass behaviour.
That’s a weird-ass interpretation of what I wrote but you can please yourself.
She has a wealth of stupid takes. Just look at her comment history.
I know what it’s like to receive death threats.Bullshit.
She looks absurdly pleased to have a platform on which to sound off.
“If you want to be heard, you should at least become famous by marrying a prince and get invited to talks where vast forms of media are there to make your voice heard. If not, know your place, peasant.”
Pot. Meet kettle.Sad that people listen you her and you settle for 3 stars on an avclub article.
Nice to see the rage boner I give you pulls all the blood out of your brain so you can’t even form a coherent thought.
Someday, Megan Markle will think of a second thing to talk about. But it won’t be today.
Actually, that picture looks like someone made a M3ghan robot.
This robot Markle is supposed to have a bunch of settings, but this one’s gotten stuck on People Are Saying Mean Things About Me Online mode.
aka “Taylor Swift Mode”?
Wow, this couple is making a weird habit of biting the hand that feeds them.
Everyone here is blindly anti Markle..But, uh, what did she get wrong about youtube? It can be great if you carefully monitor what you watch. If not it’s a cesspool designed to radicalize people.I recently deleted and restarted my account. Holy shit was most of what I was initially suggested rightwing nonsense, supplement pushers, and pretty staunchly anti-woman
She’s right.
That’s as may be, she’s still a dopey attention whore who is only worthy of the scorn of the AV Club commentariat.
The august AV Club commentariat? Oh no!
A handful of haters is not a bad trade of a life of total privilege… poor Meghan she has it so hard. Maybe avoid reading critics might help?
Dry her tears with hundred dollar bills. Or pound notes, or Canadian dollars or what the hell ever…
meh this desire that what someone is experiencing isn’t bad enough is a bad take. it does nothing to help that what has been projected on Meghan is that either i) she shouldn’t speak anything about her experiences of racism (especially the extreme vitriol online) OR ii) if she doesn’t acknowledge the ways she’s been failed than she’s doing nothing with the platform she’s been given.Her acknowledging the irony of being given a platform that also incites death threats against her, especially when she was pregnant, seems like a perfectly intelligent observation that welcomes in some bigger conversation.
One of my problems with Megan Markle and Prince Harry is their tendency to conflate online criticism with threatening behavior. If YouTube hosts, and refuses to take down, videos actually threatening Markle, then that’s absolutely a problem. But saying Youtube “incites death threats” seems like a softer, mushier standard. How does YouTube do that? If all it does is host people saying negative things about her (even unfair things) and some of the people who dislike Markle separately threaten her, YouTube can’t be responsible for that, and too often Markle seems to slide seamlessly from criticizing people who did something illegal to criticizing people who made her sad online.
One of my problems with Megan Markle and Prince Harry is their tendency to conflate online criticism with threatening behavior. If YouTube hosts, and refuses to take down, videos actually threatening Markle, then that’s absolutely a problem. But saying Youtube “incites death threats” seems like a softer, mushier standard. How does YouTube do that? If all it does is host people saying negative things about her (even unfair things) and some of the people who dislike Markle separately threaten her, YouTube can’t be responsible for that, and too often Markle seems to slide seamlessly from criticizing people who did something illegal to criticizing people who made her sad online.
I’ve been re-watching Fringe and the other day watched the season two premier where it seems like they’re adding a new FBI agent character, but then I’m pretty sure she never shows up again. It was weird.And I’m just now realizing that it was Meghan Markle.