Prince Harry wants tech companies, not parents, to carry the burden of child safety online. He told the European Parliament on Tuesday that firms must show that children can use their products safely. He spoke in Brussels at the opening of the Lost Screen Memorial. It honours children whose parents link their deaths to harm on social media.

The memorial shows replicas of oversized smartphones, each with a child's photo on the home screen, the Associated Press reported. It opened in New York last year with support from the couple's Archewell charity, according to the BBC. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, attended but withdrew from speaking, the AP reported.

“Parents should not have to prove that a product is dangerous. Companies should have to demonstrate that it is safe for children. The details can be phased in, but that principle cannot wait,” Harry said.

The Kids Act and the infinite scroll

Harry urged MEPs to go further with the EU Kids Act. The Commission proposed it in September, with a ban on social media for under-13s. He said the law should tackle addictive design and treat a seven-year-old and a 15-year-old differently. Age limits alone, he added, “cannot be the answer”.

He singled out the infinite scroll. Young people told him that endless short videos marked the moment things got worse. He said banning the feature should be simple. He then named the companies fighting such limits. Meta, Google and TikTok had challenged California's rules on addictive features, he said.

The three companies sued California last week over AB 1709, Colin Lecher reported for CalMatters. The law bars features such as infinite scroll, autoplay and recommendations for under-16s from January. The companies argue that it breaks their free speech rights. In its complaint, Meta said the law would make the state “the editor, curator, and controller of online speech”.

“Overly broad laws like this actually break the systems we've built to help kids find high-quality, age-appropriate videos,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda told CalMatters.

‘That cannot be right'

Harry also took on the platforms' privacy policies. On a panel after his speech, he said some parents had waited up to eight years to see their child's phone.

“Because of the company's privacy policies, the parents were blocked from finding out how their child died. That cannot be right,” Harry said.

He told the panel that a “handful of very powerful people” want a “lawless” social media world, Politico reported. He praised the Kids Act for putting the burden of proof on companies. Members of the internal market committee, which leads the Parliament's talks on the law, were in the room.

Harry made a similar case about AI in New York in September. He warned then that AI companion chatbots want children's attachment. In Brussels, he said AI is now “taking over our relationships”.

The Commission is already acting on parts of his list. It has accused TikTok of building a ‘rabbit hole' feed under the Digital Services Act. It has also asked member states to pause national bans on social media for a year.