Political deception is as old as politics itself. There have always been political actors who have attempted to twist and manipulate information. Sometimes this includes politicians, political activists, journalists, and even governments. When the inaccuracy of information is accidental and innocent it is referred to as “misinformation”, but when it is deliberate and malign it is labelled “disinformation”.
Arguably political deception is getting worse. The technological and media landscape is changing in ways that allow disinformation and misinformation to be spread more easily, with dangerous consequences.
Unfortunately, this heightened potential for deception comes at a time when there is much greater political polarisation and fragmenting of New Zealand’s social cohesion. This is not just a consequence of the pandemic hangover, but also accelerating social dislocation caused by ongoing crises of inequality, housing affordability, access to health and education, and so forth.
Protecting democracy
Coming into a general election it’s important that we are on guard against the possibility of politics being manipulated by bad actors. It’s therefore not surprising that on Friday there was widespread media coverage of the alarmist claims by a research company called The Disinformation Project. Their main spokesperson, Sanjana Hattotuwa, warned that urgent action needs to be taken to prevent New Zealand’s election descending into hatred and violence.
Hattotuwa was speaking in the context of the transgender culture wars that escalated after the Posey Parker rally in Auckland’s Albert Park was deemed unsafe and cancelled. At the same event, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson was hit by a motorcycle, and she singled out domestic violence carried out by “Cis white men”.
The Disinformation Project was established to keep a close eye on fringe posts on social media such as Facebook and Telegram and, according to an RNZ report, Hattotuwa “says the levels of vitriol and conspiratorial discourse this past week or two are worse than anything he’s seen during the past two years of the pandemic – including during the Parliament protest”.
But what does Hattotuwa want done to protect New Zealand’s general election? He mentions the need for some sort of “legislation” to be passed, presumably in terms of greater censorship, hate speech, or tighter regulation of political activity during the election.
His critics have suggested Hattotuwa might simply be drumming up demand for business. His Disinformation Project is a research company which sells its analysis services to social media companies and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC).
The latter employed The Disinformation Project’s services in 2022, commissioning Hattotuwa and his colleague Kate Hannah to provide monthly reports on levels of disinformation and online vitriol.
Unfortunately for Hattotuwa and Hannah, the DPMC contract didn’t last long, and The Disinformation Project has also recently been cut adrift from the University of Auckland, which initiated the research vehicle through Te Pūnaha Matatini, which is based in the University’s Physics Department.
Hattotuwa is now arguing for the Government to invest more in political infrastructure, as it did during the pandemic, to control dissident or extremist views and politics. He told RNZ last week: “Every institutional mechanism and framework that was established during the pandemic to deal with disinformation has now been dissolved. There is nothing that I know in the public domain of what the government is doing with regards to disinformation.”
Questions about hyperbole
Hattotuwa and Hannah have managed to gain a great deal of media coverage about their social media research, largely because they make quite extraordinary and colourful statements about what is going on online and it makes for good stories.
Last week, for example, Hattotuwa claimed that in the aftermath of the Posey Parker visit levels of vitriol directed at the trans community had risen to “genocidal” levels. He argued that nefarious disinformation spreaders had entered into the transgender debate spreading hate about the transgender community, and claimed that it represents the importation of content from foreign “neo-Nazi, neo-fascist, anti-Semitic networks and individuals”.
These claims received plenty of sympathetic media coverage without question. Although commentator Thomas Cranmer said the claims about genocide were “absurd” and “outlandish”, and only serve “to highlight that the Disinformation Project lacks any perspective or objectivity”.
In terms of the upcoming election, Hattotuwa claimed on Friday that “the election campaigning is not going to be like anything that the country has ever experienced”, and rising distrust in authorities is the problem. He told RNZ that dissidents are “going to go and vent their frustration, it might mean with a placard, it might mean with a gun.”
There is an element of escalation in Hattotuwa’s own claims. In media interviews over the last few years, the statement is constantly made that the latest levels of extremism and hate are “worse than anything he’s seen”. Each month, each year, each debate is apparently worse than the one before. A common refrain is that they are witnessing an “exponential growth” in disinformation, or hate has grown “inexorably”.
The Disinformation Project really made its mark during last year’s parliamentary lawn occupation, when it received global coverage for its research that showed political extremism was out of control in New Zealand. Hattotuwa told international outlets like the New York Times that “There is a tsunami of bile every day” in New Zealand. He said he had left the civil war in Sri Lanka but found that, although he had discovered a peaceful country when he arrived to study in New Zealand, it was now similar to Sri Lanka. He told the New York Times: “The long and short of it is that I can’t recognise our Aotearoa from what I studied then. There is no link. It’s chalk and cheese.”
Since last year, Hattotuwa says things have got much worse. Despite the anti-vaccine movement’s public protests getting smaller, and their political influence declining, he says they are getting bigger online. Hattotuwa told the Spinoff last month that “In every measurable way… it is more toxic today and more misogynistic than it was in 2022.”
Hattotuwa says when there was a news story about anti-vaccination parents preventing their baby from getting surgery due to concerns over blood donations, the Disinformation Project found the level of online aggravation was “unprecedented. It exceeded anything, including the 2022 protest.”
Similarly, things got worse again in 2023 according to the researchers. Hattotuwa told the Spinoff that the level of violent material posted in the wake of Jacinda Ardern resigning as prime minister was “greater than the sum total of what we studied in 2022”.
That has then been surpassed once again, apparently. This week Hattotuwa has said that the levels of hate directed at the Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson are even worse than what Jacinda Ardern ever received.
Questions about The Disinformation Project’s methodology
Do the constant claims from the Disinformation Project amount to fear-mongering? Some of the claims come across as hysterical, but it’s hard to tell because no real evidence is given to back them up.
The project’s website brings up many pseudoscientific arguments, but little in the way of what would normally be viewed as scientific research. For example, RNZ reported last week that “Hattotuwa said details of the project’s analysis of violence and content from the past week – centred on the Posie Parker visit – were so confronting he could not share it.”
Hattotuwa elaborated: “I don’t want to alarm listeners, but I think that the Disinformation Project – with evidence and in a sober reflection and analysis of what we are looking at – the honest assessment is not something that I can quite share, because the BSA (Broadcasting Standards Authority) guidelines won’t allow it.”
But when extraordinary claims are made about violence and hate, and how New Zealand’s democracy is in danger, surely some basic and substantial evidence is required? Otherwise, there will be suspicions that Disinformation Project is every bit as flaky as the conspiracy theorists that they seek to expose.
For instance, Hannah and Hattotuwa appeared recently in TVNZ’s Web of Chaos documentary in which they suggested that 350,000 New Zealanders have been captured by “alt-right” politics. Elsewhere Hattotuwa claimed that 1.8m New Zealanders subscribe to extremist beliefs. But no real evidence is provided.
Care needed not to silence democratic dissent
It is troubling that the Disinformation Project only concentrates on the misinformation and disinformation of fringe actors but never on that spread by authorities. A true disinformation project would also hold governments to account for when they have been caught out distributing or endorsing misinformation. As journalist Chris Lynch argued in the weekend, “the Disinformation Project’s efforts to combat misinformation seem to have fallen short when it comes to holding the government accountable for any inaccuracies or misleading information.”
The only complaint the Disinformation Project ever makes about the Government is that they aren’t investing enough money, or seeking enough advice, on defeating disinformation. As one critic suggested last week, the message about disinformation seems to be: “It’s so bad, you need to give us money”.
Such misuse of the disinformation problem could make things worse in election year – especially in terms of silencing debate and democracy. Chris Lynch argues: “This kind of propaganda is dangerous. It creates a false narrative that casts legitimate dissent and criticism as hate speech and attempts to silence those who hold differing views. By labelling critics as ‘transphobic’ or ‘bigoted’, his comments serve to stifle open and honest discourse while simultaneously inflaming tensions and further polarising society.”
Hannah and Hattotuwa are correct that extremism, hate, and disinformation are serious issues that need serious attention. But the Disinformation Project does a disservice to democracy and the fight against disinformation when they scaremonger in an opportunistic way. Therefore the media must report on their research in a sufficiently robust way that does the subject justice. The risk is that we actually make the problem worse if we tackle such sensitive issues so poorly.
The “Chicken Little” approach of claiming the sky is falling, or the “Boy who cried wolf” strategy of exaggerating real threats, should remind us all how the seriousness of problems can be undermined by reckless or opportunistic approaches. Instead, it’s now time for a more robust and sober discussion on disinformation and extremism.
I read to here then lost interest:
“His critics have suggested Hattotuwa might simply be drumming up demand for business. His Disinformation Project is a research company which sells its analysis services to social media companies and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC).”
AO/NZ doesn’t need yet another neoliberal cling-on with a keen interest in the self to wade in and scoop up our money.
Thus, I say. Hattotuwa? Fuck off. Just fuck right off, and take your agendas with you.
What we DO need is a royal commission of inquiry into the implementation and spread of *neoliberalism.
But wait. There’s more. We need that commission to also go up our politics, our politicians and our exports economy like a proctologist with a brand new endoscope.
* Neoliberalism. Is merely a label given to a select group of crooks and Old Boy cliques who’ve hatched cunning plans around the expensive whiskies poured within the hallowed halls of the likes of **The Christchurch Club where the overpowering smell of easy money would have eclipsed any morals, duties and respects the plump, red faced “Haw de Daw ” scum bags ever had for their lessor colleagues, friends and family much less we, the odious hoi polloi.
I don’t need a funny little voice squeaking from within the walls to tell me what I already know then expect me to pay for that ‘information’ with my taxes.
What we do need, and this is free advice for you, is investigations, inquiries, audits and full public disclosures of the trading habits and dirty deals of our Mighty Fiiiiiiine gentlemen from about the early 1920s’ to the ’30’s to today.
** The Christchurch Club.
https://www.christchurchclub.co.nz/
100% as usual countryboy
I think they count everything that isn’t the govt msm approved narrative as mis or dis. Pointless exercise.
Precisely. “Dis/misinformation” is just anything that contradicts what the government wants people to believe.
Yep 100%. It’s all effectively just Ministry of Truth nonsense. The cracks are already well and truly established, especially wrt to the covid response, which was clearly never backed by “the science” (at the time), which I tried to expose here with zero success due to censorship. All science articles are dated – “we didn’t know” is not going to fly with me.
Yes I agree.
Fidel Cashflow. It’s worse than that. It has to include the withholding of information from the citizens who it directly impacts upon, and whose lives, especially in the case of vulnerable young children, it can wreck.
The apparent capture of the government, police, and media, by extremist transgender ideology, has been made obvious in New Zealand with the suppression of facts surrounding the shocking anti-women events at Albert Park in Auckland, and the lies told in its aftermath particularly by politicians, as well as the lies told beforehand about a key speaker to create hostility, mayhem and disorder.
In this instance, now that we know that the police won’t protect women, i.e. biological women, from violence and intimidation, we are quite dependent upon reputable overseas media outlets recording and reporting indisputable proven facts when our own media suppresses them.
This of course begs the question of what other matters bought-media may collude with government to conceal.
My god you sound like another version of the disinformation project. Yes what happened in Albert Park was wrong but in your world Posey Parker whips out to defend women’s rights in between cooking batches of scones and helping out at the girl guides fundraiser.
Yes, Philsybob, this is exactly what misinformation and disinformation is although the use of these terms is anything but pointless! Mis and dis are tools to censor and discredit counter government information.
It speaks to the “quality” of government, and the media, that the world has today, that misinformation and disinformation are rarely absent from any given news cycle.
That is often malinformation, information that is true but politically inconvenient.
If the public are not free to use their discernment and make up their own minds as to what the truth is in general, then how can they be expected to make up their own minds about which is their preferred choice at the ballot box in particular? In the name of preventing “error”, perhaps we just shouldn’t be able to vote at all, and have the government vote for us instead, since “they know best”after all.
Making a choice about who you vote for and what the actual truth on a subject is are two completely different things.
They are intimately related and the principle is the same– discerning the truth and what is “right” is the basis of making a voting decision. If people are considered to be too dumb and credulous to determine things for themselves in general, then people shouldn’t be given the responsibility to making voting decisions in particular. But “dis/misinformation” isn’t at all about the “danger” of people believing or acting on falsities, it is about controlling what people think in a way that benefits Power.
While I agree that the public should be free to choose it is also obvious that some of the public would not know the truth if they tripped over it so we need a way to make sure that public policy is soundly based. The subject of this article is not a source of reliable information.
“This is not just a consequence of the pandemic hangover, but also accelerating social dislocation caused by ongoing crises of inequality, housing affordability, access to health and education, and so forth.”
Not forgetting the division caused by Labour.
andrew the ‘division’ you speak of goes back at least to the 1980s though the current LINO administration has done nothing to fix it
Well said Fidel Cashflow.
I rest my case
Brief case.
Just the NEW EVILS, the same as the OLD EVILS, but still not good people. He tangata!
Great post.
Various so called Disinformation outlets globally have been caught working for the CIA -example Renee Diresta ..they, “disinformation” outlets, have been used to shut down popular movements by the CIA
Information: we have a covid vaccine. Government
Dis/ misinformation: it doesn’t work and has magnets in it. Opposition
Your post is actual disinformation National is squeaky Clean, both opposition parties favored vaccinating.
Thanks for being an example of pro government imbalance.
Good article by the OP. Crickets elsewhere in the MSM team of $55 million.
But it doesn’t work, otherwise vaccinated people would never have been infected with Covid. And btw, the “Opposition” was completely on board with the government, and it’s “dis/misinformation” to claim otherwise.
On the button as usual Fidel.
You really need to do your research on vaccine.No vaccine is designed to stop infection dead in its tracks, it is designed to minimize the impact of the disease by fighting off said disease.
As for opposition, I was referring to the parliament anarchists.
Stop talking generally. Which strain are you referring to Fidel?
All of them.
but they die at a much reduced rate fidel…also they get less sick and don’t cram our health system with the terminally stupid
What is your evidence for a “much reduced death rate” because of Covid vaccines? There is none.
Go check the projections made early on.
Probably saved billions of lives just in NZ.
Times our billions of lives saved by 3 or another number and you will be astounded at how many lives were saved worldwide.
The strategy was the best we had at the time of uncertainty… what worries me is that we have now decided that we need to be uncertain for a few more months while we see where this thing is going. For real!
worrevva fidel worrevva
Squeaky
Information: it doesn’t work. I had 4 shots and then got covid.
Dis/misinformation: it’s a vaccine.
no one ever claimed 100percent protect cabbage house as you well know and your handy anecdotes are just that anecdotes…I had the shots and fingers crossed didn’t get covid….see anecdotes are meaningless
Government own stats: In the last month, 98% of covid infections were among those vaccinated and boosted.
Meanwhile the Swiss have halted all mRNA vaccinations and boosters because of the risk.
Time this blog caught up with the facts!
Obviously those magnets didn’t stay in “your” arm.
Everyone knows that Corona chips can teleport to where ever the author needs it to be 😀
It’s not only the Internet though, but corperate media that has been pushing these issues for decades. Questioning the ‘morality’ of science and so on. They’ve been accusing the left for ‘politicizing issues’ like the climate change or even the corona pandemic. Internet is making it all worse though for promoting actual fake news which many people are unable to recognize as such.
It also seems that right-wing audiences are less likely to watch other news sources. Of course they get thier misinformation from the sitting Prime Minister. It doesn’t help at when prime ministers take all fake news and conspiracy theories at face value.
My hunch on why right-wingers are more likely to get sucked into fake news is probably because journalists are overwhelmingly (and increasingly so) left-wing. People seek out viewpoints that reflect what they care about and MSM is less likely to do that for right-wingers.
Sky News, TVNZ, herald paywalls. We pay them to literally brainwash us like some secrete club that only we’re proud to be associated with but never whisper it’s authors name.
It’s weird because I hear people speak rightwing media narratives and they can never say where they got there sources from even when I press them and press them hard I do.
Good, balanced and methodical article
Does this mean that the daily blog is getting rid of Martyn Bradbury seeing as it doesn’t like disinformation?
Extra ordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.id like to see how you convince Bomber to quite his own show.
I thought it spread it?
Congratulations: finally someone who’s willing to buck the trend and question this pernicious group. They will not rest until every dissenter from the main-stream narrative is silenced. I was a medical research scientist and was taught to rigorously examine and interpret data. I’ve read a number of their papers, watched some of Kate Hannah’s videos and interviews and not once have I seen or heard her substantiate her assertions.
Debate on different viewpoints is dead in legacy media. RIP proper journalism except in isolated online sites.
interestingly, Thomas Cranmer also looked into the Disinfo project today.
https://cranmer.substack.com/p/from-academic-research-to-news-headlines?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1090995&post_id=113816985&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
My conclusion: They are the Witchfinder General of extreme censorship and need to go, posthaste.
These two and their ‘project’ are no better than self interested corporate lobbyists playing to woke fears of free speech that they dont agree with.
Continuing the lie that anybody that questions the radical trans agenda and the sterilization and mutilation of children are Nazis and need to be sent for re-education
Fuck off indeed.
Excellent article. I am of the opinion that the disinformation project are just that, pedlars of disinformation. They lack any credibility
what? that I can’t live as a woman if I’m not a woman? that sort of dis-information? I can’t live as as an african when I’m living in Africa? or live as a Maori on a marae because I’m not a Maori? that sort of credibility?
the new angst.
lets get all angsty
I wish people would just mind their own business and get the fuck out of mine. If I want to believe fairies live at the bottom of the garden and post a lovely AI generated picture on social media – it doesn’t mean anything to you – so just shut the fuck up. if you want the truth, go and follow your own rainbows. angst angst angst. doof doof doof.
Yes great article, the Disinformation Project is living uo to it’s name by projecting disinformation.
Is there a discernible difference between disinformation and lies?
I don’t think so,
thing is bob you and I don’t know till 50yrs down the track, teaching critical thinking isn’t a thing anymored so both sides rely on rage stimulation.
There arent any posts here that criticize Bryce Edwards. I guess the online vitriol against him will be on Twitter, where Shaleel Lal posts his hatespeech. The most I can do is defend free speech, and the best way is speaking freely. But I am not sure about joining Twitter, it seems overloaded.