Mashable: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry do not support Meta’s decision to end fact-checkers across its social platforms. Earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg announced his new policy overhaul across Facebook and Instagram in a video message. The Meta Boss promised to prioritise free speech after the return of Donald Trump to the White House. He confirmed that Meta Platforms, one of the world’s largest social media businesses, would end its third-party fact-checkers by opting to recommend more political content across its social networks.

In a lengthy statement shared on the website of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s charitable Archewell Foundation, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex denounced the policy claiming it fosters an environment where abuse and hate speech threaten democracy. “It doesn’t matter whether your views are left, right or somewhere in between—the latest news from Meta about changes to their policies directly undermines free speech,” the statement read.

It continued, “This should deeply concern us all. Contrary to the company’s talking points, allowing more abuse and normalizing hate speech serves to silence speech and expression, not foster it.”

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry suggested the policy doesn’t protect free speech, “Meta’s changes to its ‘Hateful Content Policies’ do not protect free expression but instead foster an environment where abuse and hate speech silence and threaten the voices of whole communities who make up a healthy democracy.”

They urged Meta to, “reconsider and reinstate policies to protect all users. We also call on leaders across industries to uphold their commitments to integrity and public safety in online spaces, and we applaud leaders who refuse to kowtow to bullying.”

The statement concluded, “We at The Archewell Foundation remain committed to promoting accountability, safeguarding information integrity, and protecting all communities in the digital age. We hope and expect those enabling Meta’s profits, like advertisers and shareholders, to do the same.”

Zuckerberg has also spoken about his plans to work with US President Trump back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.” Meta also owns WhatsApp and Threads.