Unprecedented levels of disinformation will only get worse this election in Aotearoa New Zealand, but systems set up to deal with it during the pandemic have all been shut down, Disinformation Project researcher Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa has warned.

He says the levels of vitriol and conspiratorial discourse this past week or two are worse than anything he has seen during the past two years of the pandemic — including during the Parliament protest — but he is not aware of any public work to counteract it.

“There is no policy, there’s no framework, there’s no real regulatory mechanism, there’s no best practice, and there’s no legal oversight,” Dr Hattotuwa told RNZ News.

He says urgent action should be taken, and could include legislation, community-based initiatives, or a stronger focus on the recommendations of the 15 March 2019 mosque attacks inquiry.

Highest levels of disinformation, conspiratorialism seen yet
Dr Hattotuwa said details of the project’s analysis of violence and content from the past week — centred on the visit by British activist Posie Parker — were so confronting he could not share it.

“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.

“The fear is very much … particularly speaking as a Sri Lankan who has come from and studied for doctoral research offline consequences of online harm, that I’m seeing now in Aotearoa New Zealand what I studied and I thought I had left behind back in Sri Lanka.”

The new levels of vitriol were unlike anything seen since the project’s daily study began in 2021, and included a rise in targeting of politicians specifically by far-right and neo-Nazi groups, he said.

But — as the SIS noted in its latest report this week — the lines were becoming increasingly blurred between those more ideologically motivated groups, and the newer ones using disinformation and targeting authorities and government.

“You know, distinction without a difference,” he said. “The Disinformation Project is not in the business of looking at the far right and neo-Nazis — that’s a specialised domain that we don’t consider ourselves to be experts in — what we do is to look at disinformation.

“Now to find that you have neo-Nazis, the far-right, anti-semitic signatures — content, presentations and engagement — that colours that discourse is profoundly worrying because you would want to have a really clear distinction.

No Telegram ‘guardrail’
“There is no guardrail on Telegram against any of this, it’s one click away. And so there’s a whole range of worries and concerns we have … because we can’t easily delineate anymore between what would have earlier been very easy categorisation.”

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she had been subjected to increasing levels of abuse in recent weeks with a particular far-right flavour.

“The online stuff is particularly worrying but no matter who it’s directed towards we’ve got to remember that can also branch out into actual violence if we don’t keep a handle on it,” she said.

“Strong community connection in real life is what holds off the far-right extremism that we’ve seen around the world … we also want the election to be run where every politician takes responsibility for a humane election dialogue that focuses on the issues, that doesn’t drum up extra hate towards any other politician or any other candidate.”

Limited protection as election nears
Dr Hattotuwa said it was particularly worrying considering the lack of tools in New Zealand to deal with disinformation and conspiratorialism.

“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,” Dr Hattotuwa said.

“The government is on the backfoot in an election year — I can understand in terms of realpolitik, but there is no investment.”

He believed the problem would only get worse as the election neared.

“The anger, the antagonism is driven by a distrust in government that is going to be instrumentalised to ever greater degrees in the future, around public consultative processing, referenda and electoral moments.

“The worry and the fear is, as has been noted by the Green Party, that the election campaigning is not going to be like anything that the country has ever experienced … that there will be offline consequences because of the online instigation and incitement.

“It’s really going to give pause to, I hope, the way that parties consider their campaign. Because the worry is — in a high trust society in New Zealand — you kind of have the expectation that you can go out and meet the constituency … I know that many others are thinking that this is now not something that you can take for granted.”

Possible countermeasures
Dr Hattotuwa said countermeasures could include legislation, security-sector reform, community-based action, or a stronger focus on implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCOI) into the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques.

“There are a lot of recommendations in the RCOI that, you know, are being just cosmetically dealt with. And there are a lot of things that are not even on the government’s radar. So there’s a whole spectrum of issues there that I think really call for meaningful conversations and investment where it’s needed.”

National’s campaign chair Chris Bishop said the party did not have any specific campaign preparations under way in relation to disinformation, but would be willing to work with the government on measures to counteract it.

“If the goverment thinks we should be taking them then we’d be happy to sit down and have a conversation about it,” he said.

“Obviously we condemn violent rhetoric and very sadly MPs and candidates in the past few years have been subject to more of that including threats made to their physical wellbeing and we condemn that and we want to try to avoid that as much as possible.”

Labour’s campaign chair Megan Woods did not respond to requests for comment.

Ardern’s rhetoric not translating to policy
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke during her valedictory farewell speech in Parliament on Wednesday about the loss of the ability to “engage in good robust debates and land on our respective positions relatively respectfully”.

“While there were a myriad of reasons, one was because so much of the information swirling around was false. I could physically see how entrenched it was for some people.”

Ardern is set to take up an unpaid role at the Christchurch Call, which was set up after the terror attacks and has a focus on targeting online proliferation of dis- and mis-information and the spread of hateful rhetoric.

Dr Hattotuwa said Ardern had led the world in her own rhetoric around the problem, but real action now needed to be taken.

“Let me be very clear, PM Ardern was a global leader in articulating the harm that disinformation has on democracy — at NATO, at Harvard, and then at the UN last year. There has been no translation into policy around that which she articulated publicly, so I think that needs to occur.

“I mean, when people say that they’re going to go and vent their frustration it might mean with a placard, it might mean with a gun.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Unprecedented levels of disinformation will only get worse this election, but systems set up to deal with it during the pandemic have all been shut down, Disinformation Project researcher Sanjana Hattotuwa has warned.https://t.co/LUVAbALjGD

— RNZ (@radionz) April 8, 2023

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Aotearoa New Zealand has become hugely polarised and it is little wonder Jacinda Ardern has decided to call it a day, says Helen Clark.

The former New Zealand prime minister and Labour Party leader is no stranger to the ups and downs of politics. However, she said current politicians faced vitriol 24/7 thanks to social media.

She said Aotearoa was seeing some of the worst elements of US politics.

Clark, who is in Switzerland at present, said she awoke to find she had received dozens of messages on her phone and was stunned, but, after a moment of reflection, not surprised by Ardern’s decision.

“I’ve seen the public pressures of vitriol and mouthing against Jacinda in a very, very unfair way and at some point, as she said, you’re human, at some point you don’t have any gas left in the tank, and she’s made the call that is absolutely right for her and her family.”

While Clark faced a huge amount of unpleasant criticism during her nine years as prime minister, she told RNZ Morning Report social media had given it more licence.

“The amount of anonymous trolling and venomous commentary is absolutely ghastly.

‘Anti-vaxxers . . . extreme language’
“I was going through the responses to the tweet I put up and the hate brigade is out in force — the anti-vaxxers, the people calling Jacinda a dictator, really just extreme and absurd language.”

In Clark’s time, talkback radio was the dominant outlet for people to express hateful views, but there was not the “24-hour trolling and viciousness on social media”.

Clark said she considered herself lucky to have led the country before the advent of social media which had made the role so much tougher.

She believed Ardern may have had an enjoyable summer and would have seriously considered if she could continue in the face of the antagonism she was experiencing.

The Waitangi Day barbecue had been cancelled late last year for security reasons and demonstrated the level of pressure the prime minister faced, Clark said.

Ardern’s programme could not be announced in advance because of the risk of “these militia-shouting crowds turn up”, she said.

“We haven’t experienced this in New Zealand for the most part. We’ve become very polarised. We’ve taken on a lot of the worst aspects of American politics, I think.

‘Time for society to reflect’
“So I think it is time to reflect as a society how we’re letting ourselves be so divided and polarised by this.”

Clark said normally mild-mannered people were proclaiming vicious views and the country did not used to be like this.

The covid-19 pandemic and the need for vaccinations had been a huge factor in the dissemination of extreme views.

Clark recalled going to school with a boy who had a withered leg, the result of polio, and there was a general acceptance of the need for vaccinations.

“It has been extraordinary to see this deterioration of basic science.”

She was not prepared to say publicly who should take over as Labour leader, but she was in no doubt there were well-qualified candidates within the caucus.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Anusha Bradley, RNZ News investigative reporter

Within hours of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation announcement in Napier, a small crowd gathered outside the city’s conference centre.

Unlike the steady stream of shocked Labour MPs still coming to terms with the news, these folks were celebrating.

“Ding dong the witch is gone,” a placard read.

Online, there have been similar sentiments to be found among groups bitterly opposed to Ardern. The Freedom and Rights Coalition even takes credit for Ardern’s departure in a post on Facebook: “We can now celebrate the departure of this leader of division. We did it!”

The comments on the post are unfit to repeat here.

Entering what would have been her sixth year, Ardern is the longest-serving Labour Prime Minister after Peter Fraser and Helen Clark. But in an emotional speech to her caucus in Napier she revealed she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job.

“It’s time,” she said.

“As much as I have taken great joy in this job, I would be giving a disservice to this country and to the Labour Party if I continued, knowing that I just don’t have enough in the tank for another four years.”

Violent abuse
While it wasn’t explicitly stated, it’s hard to imagine the increasingly violent abuse directed at her was not part of the reason.

“It is no surprise to me at all … she could not, not be affected by this,” says Disinformation Project director Kate Hannah.

Ardern probably tops the list for the amount of vitriol endured by any political leader in this country, Hannah believes.

“In the earlier parts of her first term we got sort of commentary about her looks and her lack of perceived experience. The fact that sort of she was, you know, well spoken, and really good at communicating complex issues was kind of a slur against her.”

But in the last two years the misogyny and violence directed towards Ardern has not only increased in volume, but also become more dangerous, says Hannah, who studies online hate speech and disinformation.

“The language and imagery used to talk about the Prime Minister has become more violent, more vulgar, more crude and repetitive.”

According to a recent study, published just before Christmas, which charts the rise of misogynistic language towards female leaders and women in the public sphere, the most prevalent word used to describe the Prime Minister in these circles is “the C word, and the most prevalent visual image is of witchcraft”.

“And this is old data. This is data from the middle of last year. So it’s actually got worse.”

Grim factoid
Another grim factoid from the paper shows the word “Neve” – referring to Ardern’s pre-school daughter — is also on the most prevalent list.

In June, it was revealed the number of threats towards Ardern has almost tripled in the past three years.

Hannah, who herself has been subjected to similar abuse — including death threats — says she presented the paper’s findings to Ardern and a range of MPs late last year.

How did Ardern react?

“As we all do . . . trying to laugh it off and saying the job is more important . . . and you just have to get on with the job,” says Hannah.

But this is no laughing matter, she says. This new virulent brand of misogyny is on the rise and it affects all women.

“The international disinformation, far right, pro-Putin community is incredibly misogynistic.

‘Incredibly abusive’
“It is incredibly abusive and derogatory, and what it does is attempts to reduce a person to their basic self, and in doing so signals to every other person who shares characteristics with that individual who has been targeted that they are equally worthless, equally base, equally loathed.

“So has this purpose of both targeting individually her as a woman, her role as prime minister, and then all women or all people who share some of those characteristics with her,” says Hannah.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s biggest moments.    Video: RNZ News

Massey University senior lecturer Dr Suze Wilson, who studies leadership and has examined the vitriol aimed at Ardern, says even the coining of “Jacindamania”, referring to her meteoric rise in popularity as leader served as an early warning of what was to come.

“As if somehow people were losing their heads to be excited by the prospect of a potential Prime Minister, who was young and female and articulate, through to the last couple of years where it’s become increasingly violent, the kind of abuse to which she’s been subjected.”

While the pandemic has been a factor, research also shows that generally it is becoming more challenging for women to be taken seriously, says Wilson.

“Particularly if they are younger and particularly if they don’t cleave to a masculine style, which Ardern does not.”

Worryingly, misogynistic sentiment is also on the rise globally. The latest Reykjavik Index for leadership tracks views about whether a man or woman would be more suitable to a certain position.

Backwards trend
“The most recent data came out just before Christmas, and it is showing that in some countries for the first time that there was actually some backwards moving trends,” says Wilson.

“It was showing, alarmingly, that it’s particularly among younger men, and those are the ones that are being exposed to the likes of Jordan Petersons and Andrew Tates of the world who are learning from them a really just disrespectful and antagonistic view towards women.”

Wilson says she first started noticing a shift in sentiment towards Ardern during the first 2020 lockdown. But it didn’t come from the dark corners of the anti-vax movement, but on the mainstream business social networking site LinkedIn.

‘”I started seeing people, you know like business leaders, using words like tyrant and dictator to describe the prime minister, and I was kind of quite disturbed by that.

“The fact that they can make those kinds of statements and think that somehow that would be a credible statement, tells you kind of something about the shifting norms of what’s considered an OK way to talk about our prime minister.”

Dr Wilson believes this must have taken its toll on Ardern.

“It’s hard to believe that it wouldn’t affect you, right? I mean, it would affect anybody . . . Having people talk about wanting to hang her, wanting to harm her child, the persistent rumours about her partner. She’s human, of course it’s going to take quite a toll.”

‘Look in the mirror’
Ardern herself has rarely acknowledged the abuse publicly. Wilson can understand why.

“I can understand why she doesn’t want to highlight it, because it would be, perhaps for those that are engaged in that behaviour, some kind of reinforcement that what they’re doing is having an effect.

“But really, they should just look in the mirror and be deeply ashamed of their conduct.”

Hannah says it’s also worrying the violent rhetoric towards the prime minister is now considered the “new normal”.

“This type of language and abuse is now so normalised that it’s very hard to pull back from. When people have become accustomed to using the C word, as the most commonly used word to describe the prime minister, then, you know, I just don’t know how we come back from that in any kind of quick way.”

For some, the issue was so pervasive it defined the way they viewed the announcement of her resignation. A number of public figures referred to it in posts on Twitter:

#PrimeMinister @jacindaardern resigned today. I am not surprised nor do I blame her. Her treatment, the pile on, in the last few months has been disgraceful and embarrassing. All the bullies, the misogynists, the aggrieved. She deserved so much better. A great leader. Thanks PM! pic.twitter.com/7b1AhjBXrW

— Sam Neill (@TwoPaddocks) January 19, 2023

History will judge Jacinda Ardern as a remarkable leader.

She is genuinely kind and has an incredible intellect, she’s made more of a contribution than she will ever appreciate.

I can’t help but feel like we need to find better ways to support women and mothers in politics.

— Fleur Fitzsimons (@FleurFitzsimons) January 19, 2023

Apart from wartime, no New Zealand Prime Minister has faced the challenges Jacinda Ardern has handled. And certainly none has had to govern through the kind of deranged abuse and threat to which she has been subject in the past two years.

— Russell Brown (@publicaddress) January 19, 2023

No matter what you thought of her politics, the sustained personal attacks and hatred levelled at Jacinda was unlike anything I’d seen- from critiques of her motherhood to hysteria and conspiracy theories to threats of violence.

It’s not safe to be a woman in public light

— Mohamed Hassan (@mohamedwashere) January 19, 2023

And on the streets of Auckland, kilometres away from the dwindling crowd outside Napier’s conference centre, an emotional Tessa Williams from Taupō, perhaps summed up the view of those most disturbed by the vitriol Ardern received.

“She’s put up with a lot of really tough stuff. I mean, I was surprised that she has hung in kind of as long as she did,” Williams said.

“It was pretty rough how she’s been treated. Yeah, I think it’s a good decision. It was so hard for her. She did a really good job.

“It’s sad that people were so mean to her.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz