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Speaking on the same programme, Paddy Harverson, the former palace adviser, said the speculation and pressure around the Princess of Wales’s health and whereabouts before her video statement was “the worst I’ve ever seen”.
Mr Harverson, who was previously the official spokesman for the King and also Prince William in the early years of his relationship with Kate Middleton, as she was known at the time, said the social and mainstream media “feeds off itself”.
“It’s a sort of permanent doom loop,” he said. “And it’s the worst I’ve ever seen.”
He added it took time for the Royal family to come to terms with the Princess’s diagnosis.
“I’m absolutely convinced that if we hadn’t had all the madness and social media, if we hadn’t had the sort of the Mother’s Day photo mistake, they would have still done it like this,” he said of the video statement on Friday.
Palace sources have spoken of hopes that social media giants might use the furore to tighten up systems that currently allow defamatory lies and conspiracy theories to spread unchecked.
‘Brave message’
Linda Yaccarino, the chief executive of X, formerly Twitter, described the Princess’s video as a “brave message delivered by Princess Kate with her signature grace” in a post accompanied by a heart emoji.
“Her request for privacy, to protect her children and allow her to move forward (without endless speculation) seems like a reasonable request to respect,” she said.
One aide said the message had been noted as “really interesting”, adding: “If it prompts social media platforms to look at this issue, it could be one positive out of a negative.”
The Prince of Wales has previously taken on the digital technology giants in a 2018 appeal to ask them to take the damaging side of social media more seriously.
In the past, he has focused on the dangers it poses to young people, as well as the proliferation of fake news on a variety of topics around the world, not just the Royal family.
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