I’ve been to my fair share of depressing museums. The Holocaust museums in LA and DC and parts of the African American Museum in DC definitely qualify. The sadness built into most of them is intentional. A way for each of us to relive past injustices and tragedies so perhaps we can all be a voice to help prevent them from happening again in the future. Last week, Megan Markle inaugurated the Lost Screen Memorial at Place des Nations in Geneva during World Health Assembly Week. Its aim is to spotlight the “human toll of unchecked digital spaces” while also offering a call for coordinated global action to make digital spaces safe by design.
“Their faces ask the world questions we can no longer avoid: how many more millions of children will be harmed by products that, while innovative, are still designed without sufficient safeguards? When will children be able to enjoy the extraordinary potential of technology without it compromising their wellbeing.”
The memorial features 50 lightboxes each with the story of a child who died because of some form of online harm – cyberbullying, grooming, sextortion or exposure to self-harm content. It’s an urgent message as part of the movement to recognize child online safety as a public health issue and major societal challenge. This is a challenge that we can solve through demanding more accountability from the companies and leaders building the technology we use every day.