PRINCE Harry has said the spread of false information via AI and social media means “we are no longer debating facts” on day one of the Sussexes’ tour of Colombia.
The Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan Markle were met in the capital Bogotá on Thursday by Colombia’s vice-president Francia Marquez and her husband Rafael Yerney Pinillo.
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Harry and Meghan spent their first day visiting a local school, the Colegio Cultura Popular, and joined a summit, in collaboration with their Archewell Foundation, about creating a healthier digital landscape.
Meghan said the group should aim to be “self-reliant and not tech-reliant” while Harry about asked the conversations they have with their families about managing social media and literacy.
Harry said: “What happens online within a matter of minutes transfers to the streets.
“People are acting on information that isn’t true.”
He also claimed a lot of people were “scared and uncertain” about the possible impact of AI.
“It comes down to all of us to be able to spot the true from the fake,” Harry continued.
“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.”
They spoke to children in a session where the class talked about their favourite and least favourite parts of social media, technology and dealing with life on the internet.
It came after they spent around half-an-hour at the vice-president’s residence, where they exchanged welcome gifts and were offered tea, coffee and traditional pandebono – Colombian cheese bread.
The Sussexes are being given a full security detail throughout their visit alongside Ms Marquez, who invited the couple to travel to Colombia for what has been dubbed a DIY royal tour.
Answering questions from journalists at a press conference ahead of their arrival, Ms Marquez said she was inspired to ask Harry and Meghan to visit the country after being moved by their Netflix documentary.
“I saw the Netflix series about their life, their story and that moved me and motivated me to say that this is a woman who deserves to come to our country and tell her story and her exchange will undoubtedly be an empowerment to so many women in the world,” Ms Marquez said.
The Sussexes’ controversial six-part Netflix show, aired just three months after Queen Elizabeth II’s death, laid bare their troubled relationship with the royal family and the struggles which led to their decision to step back from the working monarchy.
PIERS MORGAN One word springs to mind when I think of deluded Meghan and Harry ‘prancing around’ on fake royal tour of Colombia
By Piers Morgan
My all-time favourite theatre review was about a play called: Why?
The critic wrote one word: “Exactly.”
I thought of this when I heard that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will embark on a four-day tour of Colombia this Thursday.
They’re going at the invitation of the country’s first black Vice President, Francia Marquez, who gushed that the renegade royal duo “have the exceptional opportunity to engage with elders, youth and women who embody the aspirations and voices of Colombians . . . and illuminate Colombia’s role as a beacon of culture and innovation”.
Meghan and Harry aren’t real royals these days.
They don’t do any actual duties for the institution which conferred their titles on them — they just line their pockets with cash in America by constantly trashing their families, and the monarchy, in the media.
So, what gives them the right to prance around the world pretending to be proper royals, on quasi- official visits?
There are so many things wrong about this.
First, the laughable hypocrisy of them going to one of the world’s most dangerous places — both the UK and US government websites warn travellers to Colombia about the elevated risk of terrorism, kidnapping, rape and robbery — after all of Harry’s whiny demands for taxpayer-funded royal security when he comes to the UK to “protect his family”.
Second, their decision to go and prop up a Colombian government that’s been bedevilled by scandal since coming to power.
President Gustavo Petro, a radical socialist who once fought in a rebel guerrilla group, has seen his foreign minister suspended for alleged cor- ruption, his son Nicolas charged with pocketing cash from drug traffickers meant for his father’s presidential campaign, and his brother Juan accused of seeking payments from jailed drug dealers in exchange for judicial benefits from the government.
Petro’s also faced recent allegations that he cheated on his wife with a transgender TV host.
As for his Vice President, there’s been growing public anger over her hypocrisy at being Colombia’s minister for equality while simultaneously using luxury helicopters like taxis and spending millions on a new home where she now lives instead of her official residence.
Opposition politician Miguel Polo Polo posted on X: “Francia Marquez is the biggest fraud in our black community.
“She’s been in office for two years and has done nothing, only play the victim and travel around in helicopters.”
Sound familiar?
But what I’m most annoyed about is the Sussexes’ delusion that they can somehow operate as a rival royal family on the global stage, enjoying all the benefits from that regal status but without any need to fulfil their obligations to their King and country.
It’s completely unacceptable, and unsustainable, for estranged members of the Royal Family to conduct official trips like this.
The King should strip Meghan and Harry of their titles that they trade off so cynically, and instruct Palace officials to tell heads of foreign governments that they must stop issuing formal tour invitations of this nature to this greedy two-faced pair who want to have their royal cake and eat it.
Ms Marquez described the Sussexes’ trip as a “very special visit” aimed at building bridges and joining forces against cyber-bullying and online digital violence and discrimination, as well as promoting women’s leadership in Colombia.
The Sussexes’ team has not confirmed how the trip is being funded, whether privately, through Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation, by the Colombian government or other means.
The quasi-royal tour, which has many similarities to the programme of an official royal overseas visit, is the Sussexes’ second this year, after their three-day visit to Nigeria at the invitation of the West African nation’s chief of defence staff.
Harper’s Bazaar magazine, covering the trip as the only words pool, said Ms Marquez shared her personal admiration for Harry’s late mother Diana, Princess of Wales.
Meghan and Ms Marquez were pictured embracing as they greeted each other warmly, with Ms Marquez clasping Harry’s hands in her own as they were introduced.
The Sussexes were colour co-ordinated style-wise, with the duchess in a navy halterneck top and trousers and Harry in a dark blue suit and light blue shirt.
During the sit-down chat, Ms Marquez said she shared the same ideals and goals as Harry and Meghan amid their campaign to make the digital world safer for children.
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