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

Timor-Leste, the youngest independent nation and the most fledgling press in the Asia-Pacific, has finally shown how it’s done — with a big lesson for Pacific island neighbours.

Tackle the Chinese media gatekeepers and creeping authoritarianism threatening journalism in the region at the top.

In Dili on the final day of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s grand Pacific tour to score a multitude of agreements and deals — although falling short of winning its Pacific region-wide security pact for the moment — newly elected (for the second time) President José Ramos-Horta won a major concession.

Enough of this paranoid secrecy and contemptuous attitude towards the local – and international – media in democratic nations of the region.

Under pressure from the democrat Ramos-Horta, a longstanding friend of a free media, Wang’s entourage caved in and allowed more questions like a real media conference.

Lusa newsagency correspondent in Dili Antonió Sampaio summed up the achievement in the face of the Pacific-wide secrecy alarm in a Facebook post: “After the controversy, the Chinese minister gave in and agreed to speak with journalists. A small victory for the media in Timor-Leste!”

Small victory, big tick
A small victory maybe. But it got a big tick from Timor-Leste Journalists Association president Zevonia Vieira and her colleagues. He thanked President Ramos Horta for his role in ending the ban on local media and protecting the country’s freedom of information.

Media consultant Bob Howarth, a former PNG Post-Courier publisher and longtime adviser to the Timorese media, hailed the pushback against Chinese secrecy, saying the Chinese minister answering three questions — elsewhere in the region only one was allowed and that had to be by an approved Chinese journalist — as a “press freedom breakthrough”.

On the eve of Wang’s visit, Timor-Leste’s Press Council had denounced the restrictions being imposed on journalists before Horta’s intervention.

“In a democratic state like East Timor not being able to have questions is unacceptable,” said president Virgilio Guterres. “There may be limits for extraordinary situations where there can be no coverage, but saying explicitly that there can be no questions is against the principles of press freedom.”

The Chinese delegation justified the decision to ban questions from journalists or to exclude from the agenda any statements with “lack of time” and the “covid-19 pandemic” excuses.

However, Ramos-Horta was also quietly supportive of the Chinese overtures in the region.

According to Sampiaio, when questioned in the media conference about fears in the West about China’s actions in the Pacific, Ramos-Horta said “there is no reason for alarm” and noted that Beijing had always had interests in the region, for example in fishing.

‘A lot of lobbying’
“These Pacific countries have done a lot of lobbying with China to get more support and China is responding to that. These one-off agreements with one country or another, they don’t affect the long-standing interests of countries like Australia and the United States,” he said.

An article by The Guardian’s Pacific Project editor Kate Lyons highlighted China’s authoritarian approach to the media this week, saying “allegations raise press freedom concerns and alarm about the ability of Pacific journalists to do their jobs, particularly as the relationship between the region and China becomes closer.”

But one of the most telling criticisms came from Fiji freelance journalist Lice Movono, whose television crew reporting for the ABC, was deliberately blocked from filming. Pacific Islands Forum officials intervened.

“From the very beginning there was a lot of secrecy, no transparency, no access given,” she told The Guardian.

“I was quite disturbed by what I saw. When you live in Fiji you kind of get used to the militarised nature of the place, but to see the Chinese officials do that was quite disturbing.

“To be a journalist in Fiji is to be worried about imprisonment all the time. Journalism is criminalised. You can be jailed or the company you work for can be fined a crippling amount that can shut down the operation … But to see foreign nationals pushing you back in your own country, that was a different level.”

Media soul-searching

China was moderately successful in signing multiple bilateral agreements with almost a dozen Pacific Island nations during Wang’s visit to the region. The tour began 11 days ago in Solomon Islands — where a secret security pact with China was leaked in March — and since then Wang has met Pacific leaders from Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Niue (virtually), Cook Islands (virtually) and Vanuatu.

However, the repercussions from the visit on the media will lead to soul searching for a long time. Some brief examples of the interaction with Beijing’s authoritarianism:

Solomon Islands: The level of secrecy and selective media overtures surrounding Wang’s meetings with the government sparked the Media Association of the Solomon Islands (MASI) to call on local media to boycott coverage of the visit in protest over the “ridiculous” restrictions.

Samoa: Samoan journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson criticised the Chinese restrictions on the media with only a five-minute photo-op allowed and no questions or individual interviews. There was also no press briefing before or after Wang’s visit.

Fiji: No questions were allowed during the brief joint press conference between Wang and Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. Local media later reported that, according to Fijian officials, the no-question policy came from the Chinese side.

Examples of local media publishing propaganda were demonstrated by the pro-government Fiji Sun, with a full page “ocean of peace” op-ed written by Chinese Ambassador Qian Bo claiming China’s engagement with Pacific Island countries was “open and transparent”. The Sun followed up with report written by the Chinese embassy in Fiji touting the “great success” of Wang’s visit.

Tonga: Matangi Tonga also published an article by Chinese Ambassador Cao Xiaolin a day before Wang’s visit claiming how “China has never interfered in the internal affairs of [Pacific Island countries]” and would “adhere to openness.”

Global condemnation
The secrecy and media control surrounding Wang’s tour was roundly condemned by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and other media freedom watchdogs.

“The restriction of journalists and media organisations from the Chinese delegation’s visit … sets a worrying precedent for press freedom in the Pacific,” said the IFJ in a statement.

“The IFJ urges the governments of Solomon Islands and China to ensure all journalists are given fair and open access to all press events.”

#RSF condemns #Chinese curb on #reporters during #Pacific island tour #AsiaPacificReport @PNGAttitude @pngfacts @RSF_AsiaPacific #mediafreedom #pressfreedom #ChinaInPacific #WangYi #securitypacthttps://t.co/CGxwNn2O5U pic.twitter.com/XbBIfDIt2u

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 3, 2022

Likewise, RSF’s Asia-Pacific director Daniel Bastard said the actions surrounding the events organised by the Chinese delegation with several Pacific island states “clearly contravenes the democratic principles of the region’s countries”.

He added: “We call on officials preparing to meet Wang Yi to resist Chinese pressure by allowing local journalists and international organisations to cover these events, which are of major public interest.”

University of the South Pacific journalism head Associate Professor Shailendra Singh also criticised the Chinese actions, saying “we have two different systems here. China has a different political system — a totalitarian system, and in the Pacific we have a democratic system.”

In Papua New Guinea, the last country to be visited in the Pacific before Timor-Leste, “there appeared to be little resistance” to the authoritarian screen, according to independent journalist Scott Waide, a champion of press freedom in his country.

“There’s not a lot of awareness about the visit,” he admits. “I would have liked to have seen a visible expression of resistance at least of some sort. But from Hagen, where I was this week. I didn’t see much.”

Waide has been training journalists as part of the ABC’s Media for Development Initiative (MDI) programme as a prelude to the PNG’s general election in July.
https://www.abc.net.au/abc-international-development/projects/

The #WangYi Pacific tour reached #Fiji to tight security and a clear message that #China doesn’t welcome foreign media coverage around its officials. Were it not for Pacific media solidarity that is inclusive of ANZ press, today would have been (even more) interesting. #FijiNews pic.twitter.com/C3xwARRGuc

— Lice Movono (@LiceMovono) May 29, 2022

‘Problems to be resolved’
“We have problems that need to be resolved. Over the last month, I’ve tried to impart as much as possible through training workshops on the elections,” he told Pacific Media Watch But there are huge gaps in terms of journalism training. I believe that is a contributor to the lack of obvious pushback over Wang’s visit.”

Reflecting on China’s Pacific tour, Lice Movono, said: “At the time of my interview with The Guardian, I think I was still pretty rattled. Now I think the best way to describe my response is that I feel extremely disturbed.”

She expressed concerns that mostly women journalists from the region noted “but that didn’t get enough traction when other media covered the incident(s) — that China was able to behave that way because the governments of the Pacific allowed it, or in the case of Fiji, preferred it that way.

Movono said that since her criticisms, she had come in for nasty attention by trolls.

“I’m getting some hateful trolling from Chinese twitter accounts – got called a ‘fat pig’ yesterday,” she told Pacific Media Watch.

“Also I’m being accused of lying because some photos have come out of the doorstop we did on the Chinese ambassador here and some have purported that to be an accurate portrayal of Chinese ‘friendliness’ toward media.”

So the pushback from President Ramos-Horta is a welcome sign for media freedom in the region.

Timor-Leste rose to 17th in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index listing of 180 countries — the highest in the Pacific region — while both Fiji and Papua New Guinea fell in the rankings. There are some definite lessons there for media freedom defenders.

Frustrated Pacific journalists hope that there will be a more concerted effort to defend media freedom in the future against creeping authoritarianism.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By CIVICUS in Manila

There has been a hostile environment for civil society in the Philippines since President Rodrigo Duterte took power in 2016. Killings, arrests, threats, and intimidation of activists and government critics are often perpetrated with impunity.

According to the United Nations, the vilification of dissent is being “increasingly institutionalised and normalised in ways that will be very difficult to reverse.”

There has also been a relentless crackdown against independent media and journalists.

Threats and attacks against journalists, as well as the deployment of armies of trolls and online bots, especially during the covid-19 pandemic, have contributed to self-censorship—this has had a chilling effect within the media industry and among the wider public.

One tactic increasingly used by the government to target activists and journalists is to label them as “terrorists” or “communist fronts,” particularly those who have been critical of Duterte’s deadly “war on drugs” that has killed thousands.

Known as “red-tagging” in the Philippines, this process often puts activists at grave risk of being targeted by the state and pro-government militias.

In some cases, those who have been red-tagged were later killed. Others have received death threats or sexually abusive comments in private messages or on social media.

Rampant impunity means that accountability for attacks against activists and journalists is virtually non-existent. Courts in the Philippines have failed to provide justice and civil society has been calling for an independent investigation to address the grave violations.

Filipina journalist Inday Espina-Varona tells her story:
‘Silence would be a surrender to tyranny’

The sound of Tibetan chimes and flowing water transformed into a giant hiss the night dozens of worried friends passed on a Facebook post with my face and a headline that screamed I’d been passing information to communist guerrillas.

Old hag, menopausal bitch, a person “of confused sexuality”—I’ve been called all that on social media. Trolls routinely call for my arrest as a communist.

But the attack on 4 June 2020 was different. The anonymous right-wing Facebook page charged me with terrorism, of using access and coverage to pass sensitive, confidential military information to rebels.

That night, dinner stopped at two spoonsful. My stomach felt like a sack with a dozen stones churning around a malignant current. All my collection of Zen music, hours of staring at the stars, and no amount of calming oil could bring sleep.

Strangers came heckling the next day on Messenger. One asked how it felt to be “the muse of terrorists”. Another said, “Maghanda ka na bruha na terorista” (“Get ready, you terrorist witch”).

A third said in vulgar vernacular that I should be the first shot in the vagina, a reference to what President Rodrigo Duterte once told soldiers to do to women rebels.

I’m 57 years old, a cancer survivor with a chronic bad back. I don’t sneak around at night. I don’t do countryside treks. I don’t even cover the military.

Like shooting range target
But for weeks, I felt like a target mark in a shooting range. As a passenger on vehicles, I replaced mobile web surfing with peering into side mirrors, checking out motorcycles carrying two passengers—often mentioned in reports on killings.

I recognised a scaled-up threat. This attack didn’t target ideas or words. The charge involved actions penalised with jail time or worse. Some military officials were sharing it.

Not surprising; the current government doesn’t bother with factual niceties. It uses “communist” as a catch-all phrase for everything that bedevils the Philippines.

Anonymous teams have killed close to 300 dissenters and these attacks usually followed red-tagging campaigns. Nineteen journalists have also been murdered since Duterte assumed office in 2016.

Journalists, lawmakers, civil liberties advocates, and netizens called out the lie. Dozens reported the post. I did. We all received an automated response: It did not violate Facebook’s community standards.

It feels foolish to argue with an automated system but I did gather the evidence before getting in touch with Facebook executives. My normal response to abusive engagement on Facebook or Twitter is a laughing emoji and a block. Threats are a different matter.

We tracked down, “Let’s see how brave you are when we get to the street where you live,” to a Filipino criminology graduate working in a Japanese bar. He apologised and took it down.

Threat against ‘my daughter’
After I fact-checked Duterte for blaming rape on drug use in general, someone said my “defending addicts” should be punished with the rape of my daughter.

“That should teach you,” said the message from an account that had no sign of life. Another said he’d come to rape me.

Both accounts shared the same traits. They linked to similar accounts. Facebook took these down and did the same to the journalist-acting-as-rebel-intel post and page.

The public pressure to cull products of troll farms has lessened the incidence of hate messages. But there’s still a growth in anonymous pages focused on red-tagging, with police and military officials and official accounts spreading their posts.

Some officers were actually exposed as the masterminds of these pages. When Facebook recently scrapped several accounts linked to the armed forces, government officials erupted in rage, hurling false claims about “attacks on free expression.”

This reaction shows the nexus between unofficial and official acts and platforms in our country. It can start with social media disinformation and then get picked up by the government, or it leads with an official pronouncement blown up and given additional spin on social media.

Official complaints
We’ve officially filed complaints against some government officials, including those involved with the top anti-insurgency task force. But justice works slowly. In the meantime, I practise deep breathing and try to take precautions.

Officials dismiss any “chilling effect” from these non-stop attacks because Filipinos in general, and journalists in particular, remain outspoken. But braving dangers to exercise our right to press freedom and free expression isn’t the same as having the government respect these rights.

Two years ago, journalist Patricia Evangelista of Rappler asked a small group of colleagues what it could take for us to fall silent.

“Nothing,” was everyone’s response.

And so every day I battle fear. I have to because silence would be a surrender to tyranny. That’s not happening on my watch.

Inday Espina-Varona is an award-winning journalist from the Philippines and contributing editor for ABS-CBNNews and the Catholic news agency LiCASNews. She is a former chair of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) and the first journalist from the country to receive the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Prize for Independence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Miss Universe NZ 2019 beauty queen Diamond Langi is being trolled by thousands of Indonesians on social media for speaking up about discrimination against West Papuans.

“The post I had made was #FreeWestPapua with a video showcasing the discrimination West Papuans have had to endure for years,” she declared on Coconet TV’s Facebook and Instagram pages two days ago.

READ MORE: Seven Papuans jailed for treason amid drop charges call

On her “Women of the Islands – Diamond Langi” webpage on the Coconet TV website, the Auckland-born Tongan beauty queen is quoted as saying:

“I shared it because I wanted to bring awareness with what was happening with West Papuans, especially now with the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I had kindly asked Miss Indonesia (Frederika Alexis Cull), who I had met last year in America while competing at Miss Universe, to speak to the president of her country [Joko Widodo] to free the seven activists who were found guilty of treason for protesting against racism. 

She says that from that one post she has been hounded by Indonesian trolls who still exist on her Facebook page.

While there was support for her stance, some of the abuse from some Indonesians bordered on plain hatred, whereas others claimed the Melanesian region of West Papua belonged to Indonesia [it was annexed by Jakarta in in 1969 in a disputed colonisation process that has resulted in armed struggle and peaceful resistance ever since – Pacific Media Watch].

‘My Instagram was flooded’
“From that one post, my Instagram was flooded with abusive comments (at least 10,000 comments in a day) and they also started abusing my family, close friends, and even organisations that I work with,” she says on her Coconet TV webpage.

“I was like, wow if this is happening to me just from making a post, imagine what is happening to the people of West Papua!

“I’ve had to deactivate some of my social media for a little bit but don’t worry I’ll be back,” she says.

But she also had support for her stance.

“Very concerning that our beautiful Pacific sister, Diamond Langi’s public Facebook page is under attack by a few propaganda-fuelled keyboard warriors from Indonesia, because she’s chosen to use her emerging platform and political freedom to stand in solidarity with our indigenous whanau in West Papua,” @Oceania Interrupted said on Facebook.

“Black Lives Matter all over the world, even in the Pacific – and bullying someone for standing in solidarity with indigenous people in our Pacific context, who continue to be brutally oppressed, exploited, silenced and killed in their own land is sickening!

“If you haven’t already, please go on her page, show some love for what she is standing in solidarity for; And if you know a thing or two about THE REAL WEST PAPUA [sic] situation, please school the ignorant bullies on her page and in our world,” the cultural activist group says.

Earlier this year, Langi acted in a Polish-American feature film titled, Sosefina. The film is written by Manu Tanielu and Namualii Tofa and directed by Hinano Tanielu.

The theme of Sosefina has been to tell the story of a marginalised and overlooked Polynesian community. The movie was released in the United States on 31 January 2020.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Dan McGarry in Port Vila

In the wake of a Vanuatu Daily Post investigation into what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to spread fake news targeted at the government of Vanuatu and other supporters of West Papuan independence movement, a BBC investigative journalist has found clear evidence of a concerted campaign to pollute discussions relating to West Papua.

The in-depth report was published on the Bellingcat website. Bellingcat is a ground-breaking investigative website that uses digital sleuthing tools to uncover major stories.

It helped identify the killers in the assassination of Russian dissident Sergei Skripal, and provided definitive evidence that Russia was supplying a mercenary army to prop up the Syrian government war effort.

It also provided critical data suggesting that Russian-backed forces were responsible for downing Malaysian Airlines flight 17, which was hit by an anti-aircraft missile while flying over Ukrainian airspace.

Now, the website has turned its attention to the West Papua conflict and some of the many ways Indonesia is trying to drown out dissent and confuse people sympathetic to the cause of West Papuan freedom.

READ MORE: West Papua internet restored after Wenda, Koman accused of ‘provocation’

Using open source investigative tools, BBC journalist Benjamin Strick has uncovered clear evidence pointing to a bot network operating on Twitter, and joined to Instagram and Facebook accounts providing pro-government propaganda.

The logo for one of these accounts bears a striking resemblance to one used on other pages identified in an earlier Daily Post investigation into fake news pages that had been using plagiarised and faked content to undermine the government of Vanuatu.

Facebook quietly took the original pages down after concerns were raised by the Daily Post and others. Within days, however, the same content had reappeared in other pages, one of which featured an almost identical logo.

By using Facebook’s “boost” option, which spreads a message in exchange for payment, the fake news posts were able to reach engagement levels rivalling some of this newspaper’s top stories.

The Bellingcat investigation uncovered a web of interconnected “bot” accounts, which were used to promote pro-government information in online discussions of the ongoing political struggle.

“While there has been targeted internet disruption in Papua and Indonesia,” Strick wrote, “and the banning of counter narrative YouTube content, something that has not been exposed, until now, is an active bot network disseminating pro-government content through major social media platforms.

“The campaign, fuelled by a network of bot accounts on Twitter, expands to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. The content is spread in Tweets using specific hashtags such as #FreeWestPapua, #WestPapuaGenocide, #WestPapua and #fwpc.”

He goes on to outline how he used open source intelligence gathering software to analyse the content of tweets using these hashtags, and determined that the behaviour of dozens of accounts was consistent with the kind of propaganda operation made famous in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The findings are consistent with behaviour observed by the Daily Post and others. If it is in fact determined that state actors are behind these accounts, it would raise important questions concerning our national sovereignty and what appears to be an effort to quash the demand for independence within West Papua and online as well.

• Dan McGarry is the media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post group. This editorial was published in the Post yesterday. The Pacific Media Centre republishes VDP articles with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ Pacific

Tonga is mulling a Facebook ban as the Kingdom struggles to contain a torrent of online abuse and threats on the platform directed at the monarchy by pro-government forces.

It’s the latest fallout in an escalating digital war between the pro-democracy camp and those firmly backing Tonga’s constitutional monarchy, which bestows the King with key political assets.

A new set of proposed laws which will remove some of the King’s powers and place them in the government’s hands has drawn ire from the royals’ camp, spilling onto combative Facebook pages.

READ MORE: USP hosts talks on social media and fake news in Pacific

Observers say both sides have mobilised thousands of mostly anonymous Facebook accounts to launch attacks on opponents and push political messaging.

Tensions escalated this month when a number of violent threats were made toward the King and his daughter, prompting Police Minister Mateni Tapueluelu to tell the state broadcaster he was considering blocking Facebook to quell the unrest. Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva later confirmed a working group had been given two weeks to find a solution.

“It’s not an attack on Facebook or media, but it’s just that they (government) have come to realise that we cannot hold fake identity responsible, there’s no law applied to this kind of platform,” said internet provider Tonga Cable director Paula Piukala in an interview.

The state-owned company is part of the multi-agency working group set up by the government in response to the Facebook abuse.

“We can’t control the world of the demons,” Mr Piukala said.

In Tonga, the Pacific’s last monarchy, criticism of the royal family is shunned publicly but has long been lobbed behind closed doors.

Still, experts said critics and online trolls have recently been emboldened by Facebook-enabled anonymity and an increasingly polarised political environment.

It comes as the government attempts to push through six controversial bills, which would edge Tonga closer toward a fully-fledged democracy, undermining a centuries-old grip by the kingdom’s monarchs. A bid earlier this year to rush the laws into force was stymied and they are still before parliament.

Since then, an online battleground has emerged between democracy supporters and those of the monarchy.

In his interview with the Tonga Broadcasting Commission on August 7, Tapueluelu said it was disappointing Facebook had been used to attack the King and royal family.

But missing from his comments was that his wife, who is the Prime Minister’s daughter, had been accused online as having set up a popular pro-democracy page just days before.

Tapueluelu and his wife have denied the allegations and the page has since been shut down.

“The politicians, government included, they see Facebook as a means to basically advance their thinking, their political campaigns,” said Kalafi Moala, a veteran Tongan journalist.

He said the government was losing its online war against the monarchy and had moved to shut down Facebook in a desperate attempt to save face.

“It’s almost like a drowning man trying to reach out for whatever it is that they need to do to kind of save the day for them.

“If they banned Facebook, something very, very drastic is going to happen in this country,” Moala said, adding that protests would likely follow the move.

In January, Tonga limited access to Facebook – which has around 62,000 users in Tonga – when it lost most of its internet access for 12-days due to a cable break. Businesses found their online operations restricted and residents were unable to reach their families in other countries.

Jope Tarai, an academic who researches social media at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, said Tonga’s proposed ban was an overreaction.

“It would be very heavy handed if the rest of the majority of active account users in Tonga would have to pay the price for a group that is been accused of being a fake Facebook group,” he said, in reference to the pro-democracy Facebook page which was taken down.

Tonga is the latest in a string of Pacific governments to threaten to ban Facebook over online abuse levied at leaders.

In the past year, Papua New Guinea and Samoa have mooted shutting the platform down, although nothing has been actioned.

Tonga’s working group is also considering asking Facebook to install backdoors on local servers so the government can monitor accounts, said Tonga Cable’s Piukala. The suggestion is unlikely to carry much sway with the social media giant, which has been tightening privacy measures in response to global scrutiny.

“People will be free to write whatever they think and want, but be responsible,” Piukala said.

• This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It seems like internet trolling happens everywhere online these days – and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.

The British press and Kensington Palace officials have called for an end to the merciless online trolling of Duchesses Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, which reportedly includes racist and sexist content, and even threats.

But what exactly is internet trolling? How do trolls “behave”? Do they intend to harm, or amuse?

READ MORE: How ermpathy can make or break a troll

To find out how people define trolling, we conducted a survey with 379 participants. The results suggest there is a difference in the way the media, the research community and the general public understand trolling.

If we want to reduce abusive online behaviour, let’s start by getting the definition right.

Which of these cases is trolling?
Consider the comments that appear in the image below:

Without providing any definitions, we asked if this was an example of internet trolling. Of participants, 44 percent said yes, 41 percent said no and 15 percent were unsure.

Now consider this next image:

Of participants, 69 percent said this was an example of internet trolling, 16 percent said no, and 15 percent were unsure.

These two images depict very different online behaviour. The first image depicts mischievous and comical behaviour, where the author perhaps intended to amuse the audience. The second image depicts malicious and antisocial behaviour, where the author may have intended to cause harm.

There was more consensus among participants that the second image depicted trolling. That aligns with a more common definition of internet trolling as destructive and disruptive online behaviour that causes harm to others.

But this definition has only really evolved in more recent years. Previously, internet trolling was defined very differently.

A shifting definition
In 2002, one of the earliest definitions of internet “trolling” described the behaviour as:

luring others online (commonly on discussion forums) into pointless and time-consuming activities.

Trolling often started with a message that was intentionally incorrect, but not overly controversial. By contrast, internet “flaming” described online behaviour with hostile intentions, characterised by profanity, obscenity, and insults that inflict harm to a person or an organisation.

So, modern day definitions of internet trolling seem more consistent with the definition of flaming, rather than the initial definition of trolling.

To highlight this intention to amuse compared to the intention to harm, communication researcher Jonathan Bishop suggested we differentiate between “kudos trolling” to describe trolling for mutual enjoyment and entertainment, and “flame trolling” to describe trolling that is abusive and not intended to be humorous.

How people in our study defined trolling
In our study, which has been accepted to be published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, we recruited 379 participants (60 percent women) to answer an online, anonymous questionnaire where they provided short answer responses to the following questions:

• how do you define internet trolling?
• what kind of behaviours constitute internet trolling?

Here are some examples of how participants responded:

• Where an individual online verbally attacks another individual with intention of offending the other (female, 27)
• People saying intentionally provocative things on social media with the intent of attacking / causing discomfort or offence (female, 26)
• Teasing, bullying, joking or making fun of something, someone or a group (male, 29)
• Deliberately commenting on a post to elicit a desired response, or to purely gratify oneself by emotionally manipulating another (male, 35)

Based on participant responses, we suggest that internet trolling is now more commonly seen as an intentional, malicious online behaviour, rather than a harmless activity for mutual enjoyment.

A word cloud representing how survey participants described trolling behaviours. Image: The Conversation

Researchers use ‘trolling’ as a catch-all
Clearly there are discrepancies in the definition of internet trolling, and this is a problem.

Research does not differentiate between kudos trolling and flame trolling. Some members of the public might still view trolling as a kudos behaviour. For example, one participant in our study said:

Depends which definition you mean. The common definition now, especially as used by the media and within academia, is essentially just a synonym to “asshole”. The better, and classic, definition is someone who speaks from outside the shared paradigm of a community in order to disrupt presuppositions and try to trigger critical thought and awareness (male, 41)

Not only does the definition of trolling differ from researcher to researcher, but there can also be discrepancy between the researcher and the public.

As a term, internet trolling has significantly deviated from its early, 2002 definition and become a catch-all for all antisocial online behaviours. The lack of a uniform definition of internet trolling leaves all research on trolling open to validity concerns, which could leave the behaviour remaining largely unchecked.

We need to agree on the terminology
We propose replacing the catch-all term of trolling with “cyberabuse”.

Cyberbullying, cyberhate and cyberaggression are all different online behaviours with different definitions, but they are often referred to uniformly as “trolling”.

It is time to move away from the term trolling to describe these serious instances of cyberabuse. While it may have been empowering for the public to picture these internet “trolls” as ugly creatures living under the bridge, this imagery may have begun to downplay the seriousness of their online behaviour.

Continuing to use the term trolling, a term that initially described a behaviour that was not intended to harm, could have serious consequences for managing and preventing the behaviour.

Dr Evita March is a senior lecturer in psychology at the Federation University in Australia. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz