Prince Harry joins US think tank to fight fake news

Prince Harry during the 2016 Invictus Games. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Only a few days after announcing that he would join a Silicon Valley startup as its chief impact officer, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, landed another job as he joins a US initiative to tackle fake news.

The 36-year-old royal has been named as one of 15 members of the Commission on Information Disorder organized by the Aspen Institute.

According to the Aspen Institute’s website, the commission’s initiatives will “identify and prioritize the most critical sources and causes of information disorder and deliver a set of short-term actions and longer-term goals to help government, the private sector, and civil society respond to this modern-day crisis of faith in key institutions.”

The job will allow Prince Harry to help a team spearhead a six-month study on the state of the media.

In a statement, the duke - who has long been subject of paparazzi attacks - said there was "an avalanche of misinformation" to the point that this has already turned into a “humanitarian issue”.

The sixth-in-line to the British throne joins former US congressman Will Hurd, one of the few Republican lawyers to criticize Donald Trump; Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin; and Kathryn Murdoch, the daughter-in-law of the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, in the commission.

It will be co-chaired by the US journalist and broadcaster Katie Couric; Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; and the race equality campaigner Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change.

The commission commences its meeting in April and a series of hearings with an external panel are slated.