LONDON — Britain’s Prince Harry has spoken of his hatred for the micro-blogging website Twitter due to its role in the invasion of his privacy, newspapers reported Tuesday.
Harry was speaking to students at an event promoting the upcoming inaugural Invictus Games, a Paralympics-style multi-sports event for wounded service personnel.
The prince, fourth in line to the throne, is behind the creation of the Games, which will take place from September 10 to 14 in London, and was on hand to present certificates to the schoolchildren marking the completion of their social media training.
The 29-year-old encouraged the youngsters to get involved with the Games across social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter — but confessed that he would not be joining them online.
“I would love to tweet about things I care about, on a regular basis — if people wanted to hear about it, that would be good,” Harry said.
“The issue for myself and my family, put quite simply, is that it’s very hard for me to tweet about the Invictus Games and tweet about something that means a lot to me, whereas I at the same time really quite hate Twitter (due to) the invasion of privacy.
“I think you all know what I’m talking about.”
The army captain’s remarks were interpreted as a reference to the way people post pictures and details of his movements whenever he goes out in public.
Pictures of him frolicking naked with a blonde woman at a party in Las Vegas also did the rounds on Twitter.
Harry did reveal that he has had a taste of social networking in the past, saying: “I’m not on social media; I used to be.”
Newspapers reported that Harry had a Facebook page under the pseudonym Spike Wells, which suddenly disappeared after the Las Vegas furor.
The Invictus Games will see wounded troops from 14 nations compete in a variety of events at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London, which hosted the 2012 London Games.
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