Harry, 14 other commissioners and three co-chairs will conduct a six-month study on the state of American misinformation and misinformation.
Journalist Katie Couric, President of Color of Change, Rashad Robinson, and Chris Krebs, former director of the US Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency, are co-chairs.
“This information crisis undermines trust in our democratic institutions and strikes at the very foundation of society,” Krebs said in a statement.
That’s what he wants to examine Aspen, a leading nonprofit. The institute announced its Information Disorder Commission in January, with a mandate to develop “actionable public-private responses”.
The Commission will start meeting in April and will hold a series of briefings with external experts.
The Aspen plan calls for an interim report after about 60 days “to analyze and frame the problem of information disorders and prioritize the most critical and urgent issues,” according to the institute, and then a list of solutions and recommendations that can be acted upon .
The list of commissioners, released Wednesday morning, includes prominent figures such as former Texas Congressman Will Hurd; Sue Gordon, former Deputy Chief Information Officer; and Kathryn Murdoch, co-founder and president of Quadrivium and Rupert’s daughter-in-law.
But certainly the most notable name is Prince Harry, who has been in the public eye in recent weeks due to his interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, sat down with Winfrey and explained their decision to retire from senior roles in the British royal family and criticized the British press.
It is likely that his own personal experiences with the media – especially with lies and nonsense spread about his own life – will inform his contributions to the commission.
“As I said, the experience of today’s digital world has flooded us with an avalanche of misinformation, which affects our ability as individuals as well as societies to think clearly and truly understand the world we live in,” he said. The Duke of Sussex in a statement.
“I think it’s a humanitarian issue,” he said, “and as such, it calls for a multi-stakeholder response from advocacy voices, members of the media, university researchers, and government and civil society leaders.” eager to join this new Aspen commission and look forward to working on a solution-oriented approach to the information disorder crisis. “
The institute’s press release on Wednesday identified Prince Harry as one of the three philanthropic leaders who will be part of the project. The other two are Murdoch – who is married to Rupert Murdoch’s son James – and Marla Blow, president of the Skoll Foundation.
One week after the Winfrey interview, Harry and Meghan announced several donations from their Archewell Foundation, including for startups.
His role on the Aspen commission is part-time. It will involve regular meetings, according to the institute. The Commission is funded by Craig Newmark Philanthropies.
Krebs said in a statement that the commission strives to have a “diversity of views” and roles, “from elected officials and civic leaders to academic researchers and corporate directors.”