Meghan Markle says Instagram should have a dislike button to stop people from writing negative comments

• Meghan Markle said Instagram should have a dislike feature.
• Speaking at an online conference on Tuesday, Markle said this would prevent negative comments.

More than a year after quitting social media, Meghan Markle said Instagram should have a dislike button to help prevent negative comments.

'I think there are strong ways to make strong changes on social media platforms and with the media in general, but people have to be brave enough to do it," Markle said during an appearance at The New York Times' DealBook conference on Tuesday.

"If you look at Instagram, for example, there's a like button or there's comments. So you have to, if you disagree with it, comment in a really vitriolic way," she said during the conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin, DealBook's editor at large. "As opposed to, if there was a dislike button, wouldn't that hugely shift what you were putting out there? Because you could just like it or dislike it."

Markle added: "Now, you either like it or you have to say something negative, and it's just adding to this really unfortunate cycle that I think is having a ripple effect on women across the board."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex broke a Guinness World Record when they first launched their Instagram account in April 2019, amassing one million followers in less than six hours. They stopped using the account when they stepped back from their royal duties in March 2020.

Speaking at Fortune's virtual summit in October 2020, Markle said she had not returned to social media for her own "self-preservation" and compared it to drug addiction.

"I have a lot of concerns for people that have become obsessed with it," she said during the Fortune event. "And it is so much a part of our daily culture for so many people that it's an addiction, like many others."

"There are very few things in this world where you call the person engaging with it 'a user,'" she added. "People who are addicted to drugs are called users and people who are on social media are called users."

Representatives for Instagram did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.