Prince Harry spoke out Monday about adding more online protection for children and blasted social media companies.

Speaking from his California home at the launch of the London-based non-profit 5Rights Foundation's Global Child Online Safety Toolkit, Prince Harry advocated for more online safeguards.

"... without meaningful change to the way we hold technology accountable and approach to designing technology in the future, we will not be able to stop our kids from being subjected to addictive products where they are exposed to content they should never see and experience and should never have to go through," he said.

Prince Harry also called for greater leadership for stronger legislation.

“We need new laws, like the laws that 5Lives is working on to shape in the [United Kingdom], the [European Union] and here in California. We need public pressure. We need strong leadership. And we need continued research into what some of the biggest companies in the world are hiding behind closed doors,” Prince Harry said.

Leaked documents in September 2021 showed that Facebook knew that Instagram was causing harm to young people. The Wall Street Journal cited Facebook studies that showed teenage girls were most impacted by the images on Instagram.

“It shouldn’t have to take a whistleblower or other disturbing revelations to learn what social media companies have known for a very long time: That their platforms are designed at the expense of young people,” Prince Harry said.

He continued that children need to feel more empowered.

“None of us wants a world where children continue to be targeted and are fed dangerous content, rather than be able to learn, play and connect freely and safely. We want our children and all children to feel empowered to speak up and call for change when older generations are not capable of seeing or choose to ignore all the ways new technology is shaping society,” Prince Harry said.

Founded in 2018, 5Rights says it is "Building the digital world that young people deserve."