The world is changing fast, with digital technological innovation that is both liberating and disturbing. The threats and opportunities this presents requires a massive debate, and intervention, to ensure such changes are as healthy as possible for humanity. The online dimension of the Christchurch terrorist attacks is now provoking a sea change in attitudes towards social media.

Around the world we are now seeing attempts to rein in the tech giants with government regulations. There are blunt questions being asked about whether the likes of Facebook are “monetising hate”, and whether the dream of social media enhancing democracy and social connectedness is over.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Christchurch Call to Action campaign is currently at the most visible end of this new momentum, and commentators have declared her trip to Paris a success. For example, this afternoon Henry Cooke has concluded: Jacinda Ardern’s big day in Paris ends with her getting what she wanted.

Likewise, Gordon Campbell is impressed with how the final Paris manifesto has come together, apparently managing to satisfy all sides, including Facebook – see: On the Christchurch Call.

But the campaign isn’t over yet. According to Kelsey Munro, a research fellow at Australia’s Lowy Institute, Ardern’s bid is still a difficult one – see: Christchurch Call: Jacinda Ardern’s Paris pitch a sign of tech giants’ power.

Munro points out that attempts to regulate social media so far, have been fraught and dangerous: “Many nations around the world have concluded that the public sphere must reassert a regulatory role; the problem is how to do it within reasonable limits. No one wants anything resembling the Chinese model. Australia’s ‘knee-jerk’ reaction has been widely criticised by the tech industry and lawyers as rushed and ill-defined.”

Clearly Ardern has been keen to keep away from some of the issues around free speech that are brought up by government regulation, as I explained in my previous column – see: Ardern’s “Christchurch Call” might not be so simple.

So is her campaign going to work? There are all sorts of risks with this sort of attempt at regulation. And this is best dealt with in Henry Cooke’s article, The risks Jacinda Ardern faces with her ‘Christchurch Call’ in Paris. He outlines three broad threats: 1) Over-reach, 2) Under-reach, 3) Being used by Macron to launder his image.

In terms of those first two dangers, the Christchurch Call might end up being too strong or too weak. The third point is the idea that in collaborating so closely with the French President and other world leaders, Ardern is naively being exploited for their own electoral opportunism. Cooke suggests that Ardern might need to “make her disagreement with these other leaders clear”.

This is also the view of Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper: “What is French President Emmanuel Macron playing at? The answer’s pretty obvious, he’s trying to boost his flagging popularity at home while at the same time trying to establish himself as a world leader on cleaning up the internet” – see: Jacinda Ardern being used by Emmanuel Macron to boost his image.

Soper suggests that Macron has been rather disingenuous in his role: “If you needed any convincing that she’s being used, get a load of what happened as she was packing her designer bags for the French capital. Macron releases a 33-page report he’d commissioned… Why he couldn’t delay the release until this week’s summit is an insult to those attending. And what’s more, the investigation was only halfway through but Macron decided to make a song and dance about how well France is doing.”

The bigger problem is that Macron has a terrible record in terms of civil liberties, and is clearly no friend of free speech, which could taint the ongoing campaign to regulate social media. This is all very well explained by leftwing journalist Branko Marcetic who puts forward “a brief review of what Macron’s done while in power” – see: Jacinda Ardern must not let Emmanuel Macron co-opt the Christchurch Call.

Marcetic then asks whether New Zealanders should be comfortable with such an alliance: “This is the man Ardern is teaming up with to figure out a way to regulate online spaces. Concerns over this shouldn’t be limited to the New Zealand right – with Macron at the helm, there are legitimate worries the outcome could threaten free speech, including for that of the liberals and left that are backing such measures right now.”

He concludes: “Ardern should be careful that Macron and any other embattled leaders in the G7 don’t use this meeting as an opportunity to push measures that harm not just journalism, but all of our civil liberties. But more importantly, the New Zealand public needs to hold her to account and make sure she doesn’t.”

And some are worried that the clampdown will inevitably intrude on the traditional media. Barry Soper criticises Ardern for “trying to reign in the mainstream media’s coverage of events to ensure it’s not gratuitous, and that for all of us should be worry. It’s not for the politicians to dictate how events should be covered” – see: The media here is generally self regulatory.

It’s clear that the task of social media regulation isn’t a simple one. And one of the best outlines of the pitfalls and best practices that Ardern and co should keep in mind can found in Dan Jerker B. Svantesson’s article, It’s vital we clamp down on online terrorism. But is Ardern’s ‘Christchurch Call’ the answer?

He cautions against the “risk of hasty, excessive and uncoordinated responses” to social media problems and suggests that we are currently seeing a rush of politicians who all want to gain political capital from coming up with fast answers. He says “as part of this we must avoid hasty ‘solutions’ that will only mask the issues in the long term, and potentially cause other problems such as excessive blocking of internet content.”

Svantesson’s own list of requirements for new regulations are the following: “Effective legal regulation of the internet must be clear, proportional (balanced for all involved), accountable (able to be monitored and checked) and offer procedural guarantees (open to appeals).”

Similarly, Jordan Carter and Konstantinos Komaitis, of Internet NZ and the Internet Society, have put forward their own suggestions of what needs to underpin any new rules and laws – see: How to regulate the internet without shackling its creativity.

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has also jumped into the debate this week with the launch of her own Foundation think tank report, titled “Anti-social Media”. This calls for a new body to be set up to regulate social media in this country in the same way that the New Zealand Media Council and Broadcasting Standards Authority does with traditional media. For an in-depth discussion of the report, see Thomas Coughlan’s How to regulate social media.

Clark has explained the thinking behind this, and how it’s partly based on her own personal experience: “What I’m concerned about is that the rising level of rhetoric on social media from people who think they can get away with just about anything… And let’s face it, they can. I have regularly reported very hateful content, and very often you just get these reports dismissed. So that’s why you now need what this report recommends, which is the statutory duty to self-regulate, and then you need the regulator overseeing that” – see 1News’ Changing hate speech laws would ‘not necessarily’ have prevented Christchurch attacks – Helen Clark.

For more on this, as well as other debates about regulation of social media in New Zealand, and what sort of agreement was expected from the Paris meetings, see Derek Cheng’s Christchurch Call summit: New rules must leave nowhere to hide. In terms of the Paris agreement, he notes that “whether it will have any teeth will be a key issue, given it will be a voluntary framework.”

A new survey out shows that there’s a strong demand amongst New Zealanders for this problem to be sorted out: “More than half of New Zealanders want livestreaming stopped until platforms work out a way to immediately remove violent or other harmful content, a survey indicates. The online survey of 1134 adults carried out in the second half of April, found 54 per cent of those questioned wanted a halt to livestreaming in the meantime. In contrast, 29 per cent thought platforms should be given time to sort out a solution” – see: Most Kiwis want livestreaming halted until violent content can be curbed: survey.

Much of the debate about the problems of online extremism and regulation comes back to The Matrix movie’s concept of being “red-pilled”, which is explained in today’s Christchurch Press editorial: “To be red-pilled is to have the shackles of delusion removed and to see things as they really are” – see: Cleaning up the dark corners of the internet. But if this sounds like a positive development, then for a bigger explanation of the problem, see Henry Cooke’s Christchurch Call could lead to work on ‘red-pilling’ of online radicalisation.

Despite the difficulties involved, there’s no doubt that the tide has turned, and there is now a significant public appetite for some sort of action to be taken that might deal with the tech giants. After all, their reach affects everything in society – including democracy and politics.

This is a point well made in a report released this week, “Digital Threats to Democracy”, which suggests that the way New Zealanders are interacting with information online “can lead to the rapid spread of incorrect information and hinder the discussion and debate of issues of public policy” – see Brittany Keogh’s Social media influences New Zealanders’ opinions on politics and hurts democracy, study says.

Finally, there’s plenty of other disturbing evidence of the brave new world we are moving into. For one of the best recent accounts of this, see Danyl Mclauchlan’s book review, Big Google is watching you. Looking at an important new book by Shoshana Zuboff, a professor of social psychology at Harvard Business School, called “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power”, Mclauchlan explains why he feels so uncomfortable at the supermarket.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is winning praise for her campaign to clean up the internet, and in particular for her announcement of the “Christchurch Call” Summit to be held with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris next month. And if they can come up with some meaningful and effective ways to make the internet less available to terrorists and violent extremists then this will be a major accomplishment.

Regulating the internet is notoriously difficult, however. It might be one of the big issues of our time, but no one seems to have the answers for how to do it in a way that will be both effective and satisfactory. There’s a good chance the whole episode will amount to yet another talkfest of platitudes and politicking. This is certainly the view of Newstalk ZB’s Barry Soper, who forecasts an outcome of “full, frank and meaningless words” – see: Irony to New Zealand and France’s terrorism summit next month.

Not only this, Soper suggests that the motivations for the summit are opportunistic: “The idea no doubt came from the French President Emmanuel Macron who’s been haemorrhaging in the opinion polls at home… The international voice of reason and compassion Jacinda Ardern would have immediately come to mind and the pledge she’s now calling the Christchurch Call was born.”

The Herald’s political editor takes umbrage at such scepticism, declaring this type of view out of place: “They are the sort of critic who would never start anything unless success were guaranteed. The suggestion that Ardern do nothing after the murders of 50 people in New Zealand were live-streamed and shared on social media is to deny human nature and New Zealand’s own instincts” – see: Jacinda Ardern is knee-deep in planning joint initiative with France.

Audrey Young predicts real change will emerge from a difficult area of reform: “It won’t eliminate the evils that lurk within social media. But it won’t be nothing either.” She sees it as a positive sign that Ardern and Macron are being so inclusive in their approach: “Ardern’s natural instincts are to collaborate as broadly as possible… That factor alone makes it important to get co-operation from social media themselves, rather than using heavy-handed regulation or attempting to bully the corporates into participation.”

However, as with other international agreements, the more people you bring to the table, the greater the likelihood of a watered-down outcome. And this is the point made in Tom Pullar-Strecker’s article, The devil will be in the detail of the ‘Christchurch Call’. This reports Colin Gavaghan, director of the Centre for Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies at Otago University, as cautioning against going too broadly: “The risk, he argues, is you can end up with texts that are pitched at such a level that ‘no-one could disagree with them’ but which don’t tend to mean anything in practice.”

Pullar-Strecker’s article emphasises the uniqueness of this summit, as normally the outcomes are relatively pre-determined, with a text negotiated in advance for participants to sign up to. This won’t necessarily happen in this instance.

The success or otherwise of the initiative will be determined, it seems, by how ambitious the internet regulation campaign ends up being. Ardern, herself, is very keen to see a narrow focus for the regulations, which deal specifically with the online sharing of terrorist acts. Ardern says: “This is not about freedom of expression. This is about preventing violence and extremism and terrorism online”.

This approach is easier than going down the route of attempting to take on “hate speech” and extremist politics in general. And that is also the advice of Paul Brislen: “There are a number of things they should be looking at. The trick will be narrowing it down to something that is achievable because there are so many things that are getting out of control with the world of social media that need a regulator to step in… Trying to stay focused is going to be critical” – see Thomas Coughlan’s Speculation rife on value of ‘Christchurch Call’.

But even a focus just on violence and terrorism could be incredibly difficult. The same article makes this point: “Victoria University of Wellington media studies lecturer Peter Thompson said just defining what terrorism was presented difficulties. ‘It’s not a straightforward thing to decide what is and isn’t terrorism: live-streaming mass murder, well yes, but how do you decide which groups are considered terrorists or not?’ he said.”

Rick Shera from Netsafe and Internet NZ is also pleased that the Government is focused on dealing to the narrower and less contentious issue of terrorism: “I’m glad we are sticking to violent extremism and terrorism. Once you go into fake news, damage to democracy and other forms of online harm it becomes very difficult. Freedom of speech and the US position on that make it hard to make gains, so if the target is narrow it may be easier” – see Colin Peacock’s Does social media reform have the law on its side?

In this article by Peacock, the major issue of the United States is brought into the debate. After all, the US tech companies are based there, and benefit from that country’s very strong ethos and constitutional protections of political freedoms. This is lamented by some participants in the debate. For example, Internet NZ’s chief executive Jordan Carter is quoted, saying “The nature of their black and white constitutional protections on free speech in the US – and the current state of their politics – don’t leave me with any confidence that they will be able to drive change in this area”.

Clearly, the strong US resistance to censorship and over-regulation of speech means that Ardern’s “Christchurch Call” could run into problems. And it’s not just the US Constitution that might stymie reform, as explained by tech expert and journalist Bill Bennett, in Peacock’s article: “The problem with the US is they have two things that stop them from acting. One is the First Amendment which is all about free speech and not censoring people. The second thing is something called Section 230 that gives social media companies an out. They are not responsible for things posted on their site”.

There are, however, some major debates going on in the US about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And the above article reports internet law academic Eric Goldman suggesting that any subsequent changes from that debate might be crucial: “He thinks cutbacks of Section 230’s scope do pose serious risks to free speech online. So is it the outcome of this behind-the-scenes legal argument playing out in the US right now – and not a headline-making political summit in France – which will really determine whether internet giants take responsibility for extreme content on their platforms?”

For the best discussion of these political freedom issues, see Gordon Campbell’s column, On Ardern and Macron’s campaign against violent social media content. In this, Campbell explains what might be coming after two decades of self-regulation of the internet, given the strong political appetite for serious regulation.

He worries that Ardern and co will end up going beyond just the clampdown on terrorist and extremist violence, and might produce something that impacts on general political activity: “Once you get beyond those low hanging fruit….it becomes difficult to censor online content without doing real damage to freedom of expression, and to genuine political dissent. It would be unfortunate if the best friends of the Ardern/Macron initiatives turn out to be the tyrants in countries that would (a) dearly love to see tech companies forced to hand over the keys to encryption, and (b) would readily embrace further restrictions being put on the online content their dissidents are allowed to post.”

He also believes regulation could ultimately prove unpopular, which is why Facebook and the like want it to be carried out by governments, “presumably, so that the politicians then get to wear the backlash once people realise the full implications of allowing the state to define and police the content deemed acceptable on the Net.”

Mostly likely, there will be simple progress made in Paris, such as tightening up of Facebook Live. The big question will be whether online providers end up having to do more vetting of content before it’s published, which would be of huge consequence, and what Campbell calls a “disastrous outcome”.

And he gives the example of his own media platform, Scoop: “Every year, Scoop also publishes close on a million New Zealand press releases issued by all and sundry. In that respect, Scoop functions as a national community noticeboard. It rejects press releases that contain libels and/or socially inflammatory hate speech. Imagine though, if Scoop was required to pre-check every one of those press releases for accuracy, balance and for whether or not they might hurt the feelings of people in public office. It would not be remotely practical or affordable for Scoop to do so – and its efforts would be gamed by those with malice in mind against the organisations issuing the press releases in question.”

Similarly, Internet NZ’s Jordan Carter suggests that relying on artificial intelligence to vet and remove content could be a problem: “Applying overly tight automated filtering would lead to very widespread overblocking. What if posting a Radio New Zealand story about the Sri Lanka attacks over the weekend on Facebook was automatically blocked? Imagine if a link to a donations site for the victims of the Christchurch attacks led to the same outcome? How about sharing a video of TV news reports on either story?”.

Carter has his own list of “six thoughts” about how to make the regulation of the internet work, including keeping the scope of the exercise narrow, and striking the right balance between “preventing the spread of such abhorrent material on the one hand, and maintaining free expression on the other” – see: How to stop the ‘Christchurch Call’ on social media and terrorism falling flat.

There really will be difficulties, no matter what approach is chosen. Claire Trevett points out: “As with climate change, making the right noises and getting the desired results are two very different things. It will be something akin to Hercules wrestling the Hydra. As soon as one head is chopped off, another two will appear” – see: PM Jacinda Ardern gathers allies to wrestle the social-media Hydra.

And it’s the politicians themselves who might have the most to lose, given their increasing preference to use Facebook and the like “to bypass the filter of the traditional media and speak directly to supporters and voters. This has some pluses for those politicians – but not necessarily for democracy. Over-reliance on social media over journalistic media allows them to escape questioning on issues they may not want to face. Macron has also come in for criticism for trying to stifle the ‘Yellow Vest’ protest use of social media. Ardern herself has been known to vote with her fingers when it comes to expressing her disapproval with certain social media platforms.”

Facebook and Instagram have been key parts of Ardern’s campaigning, and Trevett points out that “in the last election, Labour spent $475,000 on advertising on Facebook – four times as much as National – as it tried to appeal to younger voters.”

Finally, for the lighter side of the debate and some apparent irregularities in social media regulation, see Hamish McNeilly’s Gone in 20 minutes: Facebook strips student nude mag cover and Andrew Gunn’s We’re taking urgent steps to address this.