Prince Harry has issued an emotional plea to social media companies as he told them children “deserve to feel safe wherever they are”.

Addressing the European Parliament in Brussels, Harry urged platforms to build in “safety by design” and told them: “Don’t put anything in front of our children that you wouldn’t put in front of your own children.”

“I’m not here as an expert or a politician. I’m here as a father. My wife, as a mother,” Harry said. “All children should be able to go online and discover something wonderful. A friend. An interest that becomes a passion. A place where they feel understood.

“They deserve to feel safe wherever they are. In a classroom. On a playground. At any time, no matter where they are.”

Later addressing a panel on the same issue, Harry said that in the last 12 months, there had been “significant progress” in the parents’ fight with “these Goliath companies in America”.

But he urged social media companies to go further in keeping children safe online and stressed the need for transparency.

“Don’t put anything in front of our children that you wouldn’t put in front of your own children,” he said. “I use that because the majority of these companies, they don’t let their children on social media because they know the dangers.

“So why would you create something that you know is going to harm someone else’s child?”

He added: “For many parents, even though their child killed themselves, they’ve had to wait years – in some instances, eight years – to get access to 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.

“I will finish with saying that this whole mission has to be about safety by design. By the time that it’s on the phone, in an app, in a kid’s hands, it’s already too late. We all know that.”

The duke appeared alongside Meghan Markle, who was seen in public for the first time since her father was charged with possession of child abuse material.

Meghan travelled to Belgium with the Harry and had been due to make the keynote address with him, but stepped back from the speech because she is said to be “not strong enough emotionally”.

The couple have previously been outspoken over their support for online safety measures, and have met with bereaved families who have lost children to online harms in Los Angeles.

Speaking to the group who are suing Meta, Instagram’s parent company, and Google’s YouTube, claiming their platforms deliberately addict and harm children, Harry praised the parents for standing up and thanked them for their work.

They launched the Parents’ Network in 2024 through their Archewell Foundation to support families affected by online harms.