The extraordinary over reach the DIA have launched with their ‘Ministry of Truth’ proposal is not only an egregious abuse of power, it’s also stupid and there’s a better way to do it!
The issue is that the Ministry of Truth wants to compel Networks to all agree to editorial safety standards with ‘safety’ plan in place for vulnerable people.
Let me give you an example of how this would impact a Political News Commentary Blog like TDB.
Under the current regime I have obligations around not posting things at certain times as per the instructions of the Electoral Commission, I have to obey defamation law and if a mean comment is posted and it is hurtful I might have to have a Netsafe contact me and threaten me to take it down or else.
Under this new regime, the Ministry of Truth compels a regulation that requires ‘safety’ plans for ‘vulnerable’ people (as defined by the Ministry of Truth).
If a person complains about your content, you are required to show the Ministry your ‘Safety’ plan and if that ‘Safety’ plan is not good enough to deal with the lived experience of the vulnerable people who you have offended, you are in trouble.
It seems the vulnerable people will determine that.
If my safety plan is not robust enough, I don’t have one or if it doesn’t end up pacifying the vulnerable person, I get fined.
This is sold as a means to protect vulnerable people, it will immediately become a weaponised process that will inspire a billion new fights.
The total surprise of the entire Media Industry at the scope of what the DIA have been secretly cooking up here is merely the stunned response of the magnitude of this Ministry of Truth, expect a backlash roar from the media industry when they fully comprehend the sheer scale and scope of what the DIA are trying to build here.
What we should be looking at, rather than a Ministry of Truth, is actual fourth estate journalism that consumers can trust, not a weaponised complaints procedure that will immediately become exploited by partisan activists masquerading is consumer safety.
What we need is a total rethink on public money spent on journalism. Currently it is handed out via a deeply invested NZ on Air who give their mates money to produce angry feminist mommy blogger podcasts no on watches.
The problem with the current model is that it is NZ on Air mates funding other NZ on Air mates to form an echo bunker of elite opinion that never has to dirty itself with reality.
All that is being generated by the current funding model is The Spin-off sharing their content with RNZ/Stuff/TVNZ etc etc etc. An endless social engineering campaign that promotes diversity over white cis male facts.
What we need is NZ on Air ‘Read between the Flags’ Kiwi journalism
In a world of disinformation, we need journalism we can trust. We all get the ‘swim between the flag’ model of surf life saving, NZ on Air should be given extra funding for ‘Read between the flags’ Kiwi Journalism. This money is to ensure plurality of voice for independent media, Māori media, specific communities, news blogs and mainstream news media who become eligible if they agree to a set of Journalistic Principles.
These Journalistic Principles are fact checking stories, attempting to get comment and providing right of replies, protecting sources and attempts to hear the other side of the story.
If you do agree and sign up and can show a body of work that proves your journalism, you are entitled to funding and must have a Kiwi Journalism flag on your site to show you are obliged to follow the Journalistic Principles Code of conduct.
You would have an awareness campaign to urge NZers to ‘read between the flags’ for trusted information.
You can’t control the narrative by simply censoring it the way the Disinformation Project wants, and a ‘read between the flags’ campaign alongside a journalism fund would ensure Kiwis knew that whatever they were reading is at least base line journalistic standards rather than so much of the bullshit opinion masquerading as journalism.
We need to adapt our funding model if we want to have a media that can change to the realities of disinformation and misinformation while championing the importance of the values of journalism.
All NZ on Air funded journalism is now is an extension of elite opinion echo bunkers that only reinforces the privilege rather than challenges it.
What we are instead getting is an Orwellian Wellington Woke Bureaucratic Panzer that will crush anyone who the partisan activists turn it against.
We don’t need a Ministry of truth, we need better funded Fourth Estate Journalism funded by the State with a clear set of journalistic standards and a public campaign warning Kiwis to ‘read within the flags’.
We need smarter ideas, not a Ministry of Truth.
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Just contract the Ministry of Truth work out to the PRC, North Korea will be too busy to do it.
Hopefully it will be a while before they can enact the ministry of wrong think – at the moment the Labour ministers are busy forming an orderly queue in front of the privileges committee.
Doesn’t it seem, ever so slightly, that we need a ministry to hold politicians to account instead?
Labour MP’s, not surprisingly are not aware of their obligations as an MP,or do they just ignore their duty?
They have been distracted.
This is a reheated version of the Disinformation Governance Board. That had nothing to do with ‘vulnerable people’, but instead simply branded any inconvenient dissent as “foreign disinformation” from “Russia, China, and Iran”.(Remember Russiagate?)
If the government actually cared about the press being full of low quality information, it would be smashing apart the absolute monopolies which exist in every single daily newspaper market. The T.V. networks (including O.T.T.) would also be broken up (there isn’t a single independent local affiliate!).
That is already related 500.k tender for the disinformation project
The Government has been very cunning in its proposal.
The Process will be the Punishment: the complaints and response process will take up enormous amounts of the media outlet’s time and money.
BUT because there is no fine or other sanction at the end (AFAIK), there can’t be a judicial review or appeal to a court that could limit the reach of the regulator or set out standards, and the legal reviews would cost the regulator a lot of money as well.
The regulator’s process will be very hard for outside researchers to see patterns in as well, unless those researchers have been selected and supported by the regulator as ‘on-side’.
From your first sentence there’s nonsense.
Both here and abroad this review of laws around ‘ media’ is NOT new nor suddenly, cunningly, secretly thrust upon citizens here in NZ. ( Unless you were living in a rabbit hole. )
Unfit for purpose, The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993, and the Broadcasting Act 1989 are long outmoded. With the ever evolving digital media and burgeoning content platforms those same aged laws do not protect consumers from harm.
Weaknesses in those 30 year old+ laws include that within our current regulations, rules are applied differently for content on different platforms.
By June 2021 , independent NZ research was sought and underway; also long overdue and finally government initiated spurred on by the way the role of media platforms had enabled the Christchurch terrorist attack and the rise of subsequent harm.
These were the two independent research projects, ” Mapping Media Content Harms “, and, ” International Regulatory Frameworks for Online Content” which now were part of informing the DIA’s current ” DISCUSSION DOCUMENT ” .
In April 2022 further update information was also published by the DIA.
Safer Online Services and Media Platforms Review.
As a continuation of the work from 2021, within that currently released DISCUSSION DOCUMENT is a wide range of specific questions for ALL New Zealanders to consider AND make submissions on as to
what protections citizens need.
So knowing that SLACKTIVISM never really solved much , and if you are actually interested in protecting real people from real harm get online because it is a democratic process you are being asked to be involved in shaping any future regulations.
* go to the original source DISCUSSION DOCUMENT
https://www.dia.govt.nz/safer-online-services-media-platforms-consultation
* Read it in its entirety and in context.
* Attend any one of the four Information Sessions direct from source if you wish.
* Apply intellect and consider the focus questions.
* Make your submission
Note to myth creators, this REVIEW of regulations is not about prohibiting freedom of speech nor is there a Ministry of Truth.
O’Toole don’t ruin all the fun for some of the triggered snowflakes (who ironically talk about how easily triggered people are) by introducing logic. It’s just like co governance. Was there in some form for ages but all of a sudden it’s a plot to overthrow the country and greasy little individuals like Seymour stoke the fire ( or if your Luxon you’ve got the defibrillator in overdrive in provincial NZ). In their world there is an army of ‘men’ wearing dresses flashing their tackle in public places and reciting children’s stories in perfect Te Reo.
Your safety plan will be assessed by a committee representing Vulnerable Peoples of Aotearoa. Committee chair: Joanna Kidman
Deputy: Shaneel Lal
Regular Vulnerable Members: Alison Mau, Morgan Godfairy, Siouxsie Wiles, Guled Mire, Mahingarangi Forbes, Eli Rubashkyn, Lizzy Marvelly.
You forgot Chloe Swarbruck, Golriz and her their glorious side leader the last female of the Party Marama Davidson. The first will rewrite history whilst history is happening, the second is applying to be Grand Mullah of NZstan in order to keep the pesky non males, non transwomen, bodies with female sex organs in place, and the ladder is there to provide orchiectomies to the last white cis males of the country.
Ah but remember the committee must be “independent”. Putting Chloe Darling, Golly G and the Prevention Violence Minister on the committee would be a bit too blatant.
We’re all trans woman of colour
The discussion should start at the right to individual freedom and the limitation of government’s influence on individual freedom.
IMO our current legislation is about right.
They ran out of money to buy off the social media “media” outlets with more than 25,000 subscribers.
How about we level the playing field, increase the $55mil media fund and pay the willing media to adhere to the media rules that government favours.
There is just so much diverse opinion that any government can allow!!
The most ridiculous thing with the people who create disastrous agencies like this that have a stupid amount of power to disrupt and destroy is that they never once consider these powers will end up in the hands of the people they don’t like. But it always happens. The one thing this Labour government can never be accused of is actually thinking about how what they do today is actually going to affect the future
This isn’t about ”vulnerable people”. That’s just the cover for another political power grab. I can’t remember a time when the poor were more vulnerable.
As part of an investment in real journalism, it would be great if journalists were incentivized to undertake actual research that involved primary sources, (not just rehashing what other media are saying), and also talking to real people – all the time.
And information – not telling people what to think.
Echo-chamber PMC bullshit must end. It is not journalism to just talk to people you consider friends, or ”experts” (nowadays the same damn people in their narrow bubble of supercilious smugness).
What we have now is nothing like journalism. Journalism used to be called the fourth estate of democracy. Democracy can’t function if the people are not equipped with the information they need to participate in it. And to function, democracy requires the participation of the people.
Politicians are supposed to be servants of the people. We should be extremely concerned by all attempts at narrowing the information we can access, and instead, telling us what to think.
It is less sinister. It is about virtue.
Who is not abhorred by the actions of the lunatic in Christchurch and the harm and hurt that he caused.
We have to do something!! But what we plan to do will not remedy that what is wrong, it will more likely result in more harm.
Are National voters ‘vulnerable people’?
who guards the guards?
“Who guard the guardians?”
The biggest problem I see with the Safe Online Services and Media Platforms proposal is that the Regulator will consist of a board of people appointed by the government. The board will be a “single centralised independent regulator” that “runs the system” (p24).
The focus is on major platforms that must comply with the codes developed by ‘industry’ in collaboration with the Regulator.
I see plenty of problems there for the Regulator and the ‘codes’ to be biased towards both the government appointees to the board, and the ‘industry’ influence on developing the codes.
eg our Human Rights Commission is headed by Paul Hunt, who was appointed by Andrew Little. Hunt is biased towards gender ID ideology and does not agree with the gender critical position.
The Safe Online Services… proposal acknowledges women experience a lot of misogynistic abuse on social media. However, our govt, public services, HRC etc claim a ‘woman’ is anyone who IDs as a woman. The proposal claims the regulator will somehow negotiate such conflicting rights. Such a conflict would be between claims by the gender ideologists, and those of gender critical women.
I have no confidence that the Safe Online & Media Platforms Regulator Board will be truly independent, especially considering the clause that says,
“Content is considered harmful where the experience of content causes loss or damage to rights, property, or physical, social, emotional, and mental wellbeing.” (p18) Who will judge what is harmful to “social, emotional, and mental wellbeing”? And how will they do that?
‘Your post makes me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable.’
There you have it, you’re guilty.
As charged.
Misogyny isn’t a problem in the west. Men have created the safest most prosperous nations on earth. Men do all the maintenance and repair work on infrastructure like the internet so woman can spend three days on social media telling everyone how difficult life is and how oppressed they are while having sexual relationships with multiple people at the same time.
It’s help your cause of you could give some examples if you could give some examples of woman experiencing “misogyny” online.
[Sigh]. And do you have anything tom say about the main point of my comment about government appointing people to the Regulator Board?
BTW, you over-estimate how much work men do on the infrastructure of the Internet etc. Of course there has been a history of men dominating technical industries, even though a woman was the first coder. And the male dominated IT techie industry has hardly created an admirable and safe social media environment – especially not for women.
However, the percentage of women techies in IT though proportionally around a bit above 20% currently is growing, and expected to grow further. The proportion of women working for large technology companies is a bit above 30%.
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/technology-media-and-telecom-predictions/2022/statistics-show-women-in-technology-are-facing-new-headwinds.html
NB: part of the reason given for women finding it tougher in IT work than men is that they do a far greater proportion of household chores and caring for dependents when not at work than their male colleagues.
Males and females should be encouraged to pick better mates.
I have known many couples where one partner took care of the home, the wife, the children and earned the money. Others where the roles were reversed and others where the roles were more balanced.
Other couples were better off single or with other partners.
And we think the alphabet people are diverse….
But yes, I agree, this idea of thought police is crazy.
O’Toole, thanks for your perspective and the link. I read some parts and it sounds kinda ok. But I disagree with the divisive nature of the following as I think we are all New Zealanders, yes?
“What would the proposed model achieve?
143. A co-regulatory model that places greater responsibility on platforms to improve
consumer protection and child safety offers several improvements to the current
system.
Providing for Te Tiriti o Waitangi
144. It is important that the new regulatory framework reflects New Zealand’s unique
cultural and social perspectives, and that it is grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The new regulatory framework would aim to achieve outcomes that reflect Māori
perspectives, needs, and aspirations.
The regulator could be required to have a significant Māori presence on its
Board
145. We expect the legislation to provide for rangatiratanga by requiring a significant
Māori presence on the Board of the regulator. For example, more than one
member could be required to have knowledge of tikanga Māori, how content risks
affect Māori, or both. The Board oversees the regulator’s activities and sets its
strategic direction and priorities.
146. The regulator may also wish to explore whether it needs a formal Māori advisory
structure to support its work at the more operational level. The regulator would
also need enough resources to keep in-house capacity and understanding of te ao
Māori to inform its operational processes and decision-making.
The regulator could fund education for Māori and use tikanga Māori processes
147. Other opportunities for partnership and Māori participation in the new framework
would include:
• the regulator funding education initiatives that would be by Māori, for Māori (for
example, initiatives to address harms faced by kaumātua, wāhine, rangatahi
and tamariki that are led and shaped by iwi and community leaders or
organisations)
• building tikanga Māori conflict-resolution and problem-solving processes into
the regulator’s engagement with the community and the process for approving
codes.
Safer Online Services and Media Platforms 6”
This is the sort of thing where people shoot themselves in the foot.
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