Name: MPW Summit 2020: One on one with Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex
Uploaded: 2020-09-29
Duration: 13 min 13 s
Description: Our experiences online shape our communities offline. How do we build—and rebuild—our digital world? What’s the true price we pay if we don’t? We welcome Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex to discuss what it will take to create humane tech.

MPW Summit 2020: One on one with Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex

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Our experiences online shape our communities offline. How do we build—and rebuild—our digital world? What’s the true price we pay if we don’t? We welcome Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex to discuss what it will take to create humane tech.

I'm here with the duchess obsessed six to talk about her extraordinary work on building and rebuilding healthy affirming online communities. Ma'am, I'm so sorry we're not together, but I'm so very glad you were here. Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here with you. And um, as we were just chatting highlight of my day as well, thank you for having me. Uh I appreciate you saying that, you know, the most powerful women's Summit has a very beautiful tradition when we're all together called the Big get to know you where we stand up and introduce ourselves in community. We can't do it this year for obvious reasons, but for the same, obvious reasons. It seems like the new tradition should be the big. How are you? So that's how where I'd like to start? How are you? You've gone through a big transition, a lot of it in public. How are you processing it? How are you doing? What are you up to? Well, I'm doing well, I mean I think it's safe to say that everyone has gone through a big transition this year um in their own right. And you know in some ways it's a different version of the same thing because we are all going through a reset and we're all going through a moment of reckoning and and probably a reevaluation of what really matters. So for me it's um it's been amazing to spend time with my husband and to watch our little one grow and and that's where our attention has been. In addition to course, focusing on how we can help be part of the change of energy. Maybe that so many people are craving right now and whatever we can do to help in that capacity. But and in answer to your question just how am I? I'm good, How are you? I am good. It is an interesting question. Sometimes. My answer is I'm hydrated today and I've had a good night's sleep, but like, but like you, I'm thinking about the world a lot and what my role is in it. So I'm going to pick your brain for some advice on that for all of us, if that's alright with you? Absolutely. Can we start with some of the quasi still evolving news around your new family foundation? I'd love to know what you're planning there because it sounds very you and also very necessary. Thank you. You know, I think, um as we were really exploring what makes the most sense. My husband's been very focused for well before he met me, just as I've been focused on certain causes. Well before I met him. So for him, there's an immediate link with veterans and of course the environment and mental health and I have championed for such a long time gender equity, women's rights from a really young age that was key to me. And so when we watched this overlap of our interests at any rate, the one thing that we started to recognize was that all of these things, all of these causes that you can do so much work on every day if you continue to hit this brick wall Of at the moment, what is happening in the digital and online space. Then in many ways it's like taking two steps forward and five steps backward. And so part of our focus with our 12 really with the actual foundation is to just ensure that we are helping to foster healthy positive communities online and off for our collective well being. And that starts in so many different arenas. But in the work that we've been doing quietly really since january. Um, again, we we hosted and convened a small group just a couple weeks ago to continue just getting to the root cause of this. I think we can all see it and feel it, whether we are directly involved in the online world or not, it's felt globally and we know that it's not sustainable the way that it is. So what are some of the plans? Can you tell us anything specific about what you're doing or how this community can help? Absolutely. You know, I think so much of what we've been doing, I've been calling it arch well in action in many ways behind behind the scenes. And so, you know, that is working with corporations, working with businesses to really try to influence people on a higher level, but also on a grassroots level, to see the part that they're playing in things right, To see how you are propagating hate, whether passively or actively to see how you are clicking on things that are contributing to an industry that is really toxic for so many of us and especially, you know, as parents, there are only certain things that you can tolerate on your own. But when you see the ripple effect of what it's genuinely doing to the emotional well being, a young adult, coupled with what it's doing in terms of misinformation for so many communities as we are just days away really from this election period, we have got to all put our stock in something that is true and we all need to have reliable media and news sources that are telling us the truth. Um, without that, I don't know where it leaves us. So there are things that we can each do actively every day which really just includes not contributing to or even clicking on misinformation and when you know something's wrong, Reporting it, talking about it, ensuring that the facts are getting out there. I think that is one very clear tangible thing that everyone could be doing Well. One clear tangible thing you started doing was you joined the stop Hate for profit campaign. I think it's a fascinating movement and it hits facebook and probably other social media platforms, right? Where there live at their advertising dollars. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is and what your role in that is? Yeah. You know, I mean, when we moved to Los Angeles, that was right when George Floyd murder had just happened. And so the racial justice movement here in the states, which, I mean, we can call it that right now. But let's be honest, this has been happening for a very long time. Um, but seeing it come to the surface in a different way, just had my husband and I both very eager to be involved with the right civic and civil activists behind the scenes. And so between Rashad Robinson, color change or Derrick johnson at the NaACP, those were conversations we started having early on, and then as that was happening in tandem, we were still doing this work in the digital space and stop paper profit happened to overlap in both of those fields from our standpoint. And certainly from mine, I always try to see things through a lens of positivity. So the idea of a boycott, if I'm being honest, didn't necessarily resonate with me. Um, because I don't know if that is the most active approach for a long term solution, but I do think what it did was garnered the attention that was necessary because at the end of the day, from my standpoint, it's not about trying to take down facebook, for example, if the changes that are being made are in fact made, it's for the good of everyone, facebook included, and certainly for the good of the users who are on that platform. So I think it's really about what they were doing was stopping advertising sales for the month of june at the time, and it's extended into different, um, tangential objectives there. But most of the advertising executives and um, cmos that we had spoken to said a month is not enough. And if we're really going to do this, let's see it through to the end of the year. And I think maybe that is the take away that we can't have this slap on the wrist. It's really about if we're looking for long term solutions, what are the actions that we can do now that are going to lay that groundwork for our future and certainly for that of our Children. And that doesn't happen in a month. No, it doesn't. But as I'm listening to you talk, I'm really impressed with how deep you're going into these issues and what you're really calling for is a is a complete design fix of the nuts and bolts and the arteries that has been connecting us through technology um, since the, since the internet was young. Well, there's so much good that comes out of it right in this covid space, we wouldn't be able to do this right now. We're not for technology in the digital space. So we have to acknowledge that this isn't about a dismissal of all things online, but it has to be a recognition and a reckoning as well of what is actually happening there. And I think it's really hard for people to wrap their heads around. I said the other day, you know, it's like we live in the future when you're talking about bots and trolls and all of these things. It doesn't it seem so fantastical, but that's actually the current state of affairs and that is shaping how we interact with each other online and off. And that's the piece. That's important. It is not just an isolated experience, It transcends into how you interact with anyone around you and certainly your own relationship with yourself. So I want to focus on a word that you use, that I use a lot which is reckoning we are we are really here. We are really facing it. And I I just to prepare for this interview, I listened to a moving graduation speech that you gave and you not only said Black Lives Matter, you said the names of the people that we've lost, the people that have been murdered. And I was struck by then the the courage that it took, the effortless courage that it took to keep bringing these things forward, which you do and that brings me to the moment of reckoning. You're not the only powerful woman, even in this, in this community who has had a sitting president, take a shot at you mobs, come at you powerful people and powerful forces try to take you down or try to disparage your message. This is a tough time for people with power and platforms. What is your best advice for other folks with stakeholders with a desire to weigh in on the important issues of the day? To take those risks carefully to to assess them correctly and then to weigh in. Yes, I mean I think um it's about being authentic and if you look back at anything that I've said, it's really interesting because it often ends up what ends up being inflammatory, it seems is people's interpretation of it, but if you listen to what I actually say, it's not controversial and actually some of it is reactive to things that just haven't happened, which is in some ways, I think you have to have a sense of humor about it even though there is quite a bit of gravity and there can be a lot of danger in a misinterpretation of something that it was never there to begin with. But that again is a byproduct of what is happening right now for all of us, I would say the biggest thing and what I have always stuck to, you know that high school graduation speech. I had done it a week or so before. I had pre taped it for them. It was for my 17 year old girls, right? So the tone and the sentiment, while it was of course going to be a call to action was certainly lighter than where we landed after the murder of George Floyd. I knew I couldn't use that tape and I really struggled if I'm being honest about what to say. And I didn't sit down and write anything and I didn't ask anyone for help with how I should word this. I was just in tears thinking about it and I was explaining to my husband why I thought that it was so heartbreaking. Certainly for me to be back in Los Angeles and it's feeling so reminiscent to the state of of Los Angeles with the riots after the Rodney King beating. And so for these girls to be graduating from high school, which should be a very celebratory time to be plagued with. That unrest felt troubling to me. So I just spoke from the heart and um and that's probably why it doesn't look polished and that's why it doesn't feel perfect and but that's also why it's authentic. And I think that is the takeaway that I have found is if you don't listen to all the noise out there and you just focus on living a purpose driven life and you focus on knowing what your own moral compass is, there are always going to be naysayers. But at the end of the day, you know, I used to have a quote up in my room many, many moons ago and it resonates now, perhaps more than ever when you see the visual and noise that can be um out in the world and it's by Georgia O'keefe and I've already settled it for myself. So flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free and the moment that you are able to be liberated from all of these other opinions of what you know to be true, then I think it's very easy to just live with truth and live with authenticity. And that is how I, that's how I choose to move through the world. Well, that just seems like the perfect place to end. I have to let you go. Thank you so very much. Oh my goodness! I know it was so fast and uh I hope that one day we can all be together. Yes. And celebrate maybe when you have a milestone with the Foundation, we'd love to hear more about that. Fantastic! I heard your call to action loud and clear. Great. Thank you so much and um, and just stay safe and healthy in these very fragile times. And thanks for taking the time to chat with me and for having me. I appreciate it. We appreciate you. Thank you. Take care.