Open mike 14/04/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, April 14th, 2023 - 36 comments
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36 comments on “Open mike 14/04/2023 ”

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  1. SPC 1
    14 April 2023 at 8:14 am

    Stuff places The Dominion into the bargain bin for old records, 78 years after New Zealand joined the United Nations (nothing personal Winston) – the one with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

    New Zealand's status as a dominion ended in 1945 when we joined the United Nations. It's time for the word to go,” editor Caitlin Cherry said. “We thought carefully about what we wanted The Post to represent now and into the future.” Cherry said the newspaper was evolving with its community

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300853294/evolving-with-its-community-new-name-for-the-dominion-post

    FACT CHECK/CHERRY PICK

    The year 2007, while it marks the centenary of New Zealand's transition from colony to Dominion, also marks 60 years since New Zealand passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947 and gained legal and formal independence from Britain in the exercise of its external affairs.

    Before the Statute of Westminster Act 1931 – and arguably until the New Zealand Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act in 1947 – the New Zealand Parliament was not a sovereign parliament, it did not have the capacity to make all law, (such as legislating extra-territorially), and there were some laws that it could not unmake.

    Full New Zealand sovereignty can be dated to 1947 – both in terms of gaining formal legal control over the conduct of its foreign policy and the attainment of constitutional and plenary powers by its legislature.

    https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/research-papers/document/00PLLawRP07041/new-zealand-sovereignty-1857-1907-1947-or-1987

    First Post.

  2. Anker 2
    14 April 2023 at 9:40 am

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300852693/josie-pagani-why-banning-hate-speech-doesnt-get-rid-of-the-hate

    I know Josie Pagani isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but this article is very good.

    She interviews Nadine Strossen, who is a free speech civil liberties, Professor of Law visiting from the States.
    Quoting Strossen
    “Every argument today to justify censoring white supremacist speech was made by defenders of slavery to ban abolitionist speakers. She quotes the slavers arguing that the words of abolitionists “libelled the South and inflicted emotional injury”, and were “emotionally upsetting and traumatising”. Laws were duly passed to “reduce the harm”.

    I went to Nadine Strossmans (who Josie interviewed) talk last night and it was excellent.so pleased she is talking to the Law Commission about hate speech laws.

    of the many points she made, one was that if people are saying hateful things, you need to know about it. It’s not the hateful words you want to get at, to change minds or ameliorate hate you need to get at the assumptions underneath the hate.

    • AB 2.1
      14 April 2023 at 11:40 am

      That's why you need a fairly robust definition of 'harm' that sets a high bar. The bar should not be set so low that normal and even very intemperate political debate will constitute 'harm'. Impersonal harm, such as the economic harm that might befall those slave owners if slavery was abolished, should be disqualified.

      However, it's not a reason for throwing the door open entirely and letting anything go – as the Christchurch mosque murders showed us. This is a horribly difficult and permanently contested space – we should expect that. The first step though, is to ignore purists from either camp.

      • SPC 2.1.1
        14 April 2023 at 12:37 pm

        New Zealand already has several pieces of legislation that set the outward bounds of free expression, including the 1993 Human Rights Act, which outlaws any speech that intends

        ‘to excite hostility or ill-will against, or bring into contempt or ridicule, any group of persons in New Zealand on the ground of the colour, race, or ethnic or national origins.’

        This has rarely resulted in a prosecution.

        I am not sure that the law is a high bar, but it has been one in effect.

        People seem to fear that adding other categories would result in a lower bar.

      • SPC 2.1.2
        14 April 2023 at 3:03 pm

        This is a turn up (to quoth Baldrick).

        The Media Council, the complainants

        "have right to express their disgust and disagreement, take a different view of colonisation, write letters to the editor, not to read Stuff and consume other media. But they do not have the right to not be offended

        David Seymour says

        After receiving a number of complaints about a poem that incites violence against white people, the Media Council concluded the poem 'provides some balance to a long-running debate; about colonisation.

        "In a modern liberal democracy, all people should be held to the same standards, but the Media Council believes it is not possible for people of some ethnicities to be racist. That is in itself discriminatory

        https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/04/media-council-tosses-out-complaints-about-tusiata-avia-the-savage-coloniser-poem-published-on-stuff.html

        • Anker 2.1.2.1
          14 April 2023 at 6:18 pm

          Her poem might meet the definitation of hate speech because it could be said to incite violence.

          I think its very weak art and I mostly object to the arts council for funding it.

          • Incognito 2.1.2.1.1
            14 April 2023 at 9:07 pm

            What is Art?

            • Anker 2.1.2.1.1.1
              14 April 2023 at 9:34 pm

              Visual arts, performance art, music, dance, theartre

            • left for dead 2.1.2.1.1.2
              15 April 2023 at 9:23 am

              that was a trap. Bullshit artist,is their work art..Ha

              • Incognito …
                15 April 2023 at 11:17 am

                Poets, writers, and other creative types must make a choice: either take the generous meagre contestable Taxpayers’ funding and STFU or be activists who live on sub-standard incomes and who are equally despised by people who intensely dislike their work(s) & actions. Voltaire would have a fit.

  3. Sanctuary 3
    14 April 2023 at 12:06 pm

    I don't get this free speech angst. We've never, ever had free speech. Libel and sedition laws have seen to that.

    Use a simple rule. Would the letters editor of a reputable newspaper publish a post it if it were an old fashioned letter to the editor? No? Then don't allow it to be published on your social media platform.

    • Nic the NZer 3.1
      14 April 2023 at 12:22 pm

      Thanks for the suggestion. I'll be fine with all your comments going through pre-mod too.

      • Sanctuary 3.1.1
        14 April 2023 at 1:07 pm

        Well, why not? Why should an online platform be any less liable for what is published there than a printed newspaper?

        Every discussion on misinformation begins with identifying social media as the cause of the upswing in fake news and lies, then proceeds to studiously avoid that giant elephant in the room when discussing what to do about it.

        What protects FB and twitter and the like (for the time being) is that they are foreign platforms beyond our courts, but that doesn't mean people in NZ should have a similar protection extended to them – the cookers are subject to the law.

        I have said before that it should be a specific crime to post/publish online false information knowing it to be not true during a state of emergency. After all, rumour mongering is a propaganda technique and it really added to uncertainty during cyclone Gabrielle when propagandists from the Sensible Sentencing trust to the usual anti-vax cooker mob irresponsibly sought to turn the emergency into crude political advantage.

        That cooker guy in Hawkes Bay who made up a story of dozens of bodies floating in the sea then fled the district when called out days later ought to be have been convicted – his lies made it all the way to the Guardian, and were repeated for days in local and international media.

        More generally, it simply isn't good enough for any social media platform to dismiss attempts to monitor what is published on them in real time as impossible and anyway, doing so would undermine their profit model. If Zuckerberg can't guarantee Facebook won't be a platform for hate speech, conspiracy theories, misinformation, fake news and rumour mongering then that is his problem, not ours – FB shouldn't be, and should never been allowed to be, in business if it’s entire business model is based on being an irresponsible and reckless corporate citizen.

        • Nic the NZer 3.1.1.1
          14 April 2023 at 1:22 pm

          I'm a bit surprised the editor published this one. You seem to think New Zealand is capable of extraditing Mark Zuckerberg out of the states over something which is not a crime under US law. Usually (as I have observed) the editor would not publish such outlandish claims of pseudo legal theories to save the blushes of the letter writer.

          • Sanctuary 3.1.1.1.1
            14 April 2023 at 1:29 pm

            I would suggest you learn to actually read before doing a bit of try hard sarcasm.

            • Nic the NZer 3.1.1.1.1.1
              14 April 2023 at 1:43 pm

              I wasn't being sarcastic at all. I don't think NZ has any hope of getting social media to self regulate its content for truth. NZ has its work cut out getting the credulous Guardian to regulate its content for truth most days.

              • weka …
                14 April 2023 at 1:49 pm

                The Standard self regulates for truth, relatively successfully 😇

                • Johnr …
                  14 April 2023 at 5:49 pm

                  Huh ?? Given your demand for everybody else to provide the truth of their statements. Do you have references for your rather outlandish claims

                  • weka …
                    14 April 2023 at 7:01 pm

                    I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not.

                    • Johnr …
                      14 April 2023 at 7:13 pm

                      No joke. The moderators and you in particular seem to want to evolve this site into some sort of university type treatise for each entry with references to Africa.

                      I read this site for elucidation and entertainment. However when I arrive at a post that takes up several screens on my phone I now skip over it as I do with a gazillion he said, she said entries or should that be this person, that person.

                      Have to say the only post I look forward to and studiously read is from MickeySavage at least somebody has their feet on the ground and speaks from life's experiences

                    • Incognito []
                      14 April 2023 at 9:05 pm

                      Sounds like you’re trying to tell us how we should or should not run the site. For someone who recently willingly accepted a one-month ban for advocating violence you’re now pushing the limits of my patience. Why don’t you create your own blog site for your elucidation and entertainment and leave TS to us? I spend more than enough of my time & energy here to read your snide remarks.

              • aj …
                14 April 2023 at 3:02 pm

                I don't think NZ has any hope of getting social media to self regulate its content for truth. NZ has its work cut out getting the credulous Guardian to regulate its content for truth most days.

                Completely agree. The cat is well and truly out of the bag.

                In popular usage, post-truth encapsulates five interconnected ideas. Primarily definitions of post-truth argue that emotion has become more significant than objective fact in shaping personal beliefs and public debates. Second, post-truth includes the relativisation of truth; the idea that political statements, and even empirically grounded scientific positions, are subject to the manipulation of knowledge producers (Lockie, 2017). Correlatively, politicians can apparently contradict their prior assertions without incurring reputational damage and, hence, a third characteristic of post-truth is the decline of shame when one is exposed for being factually wrong or suspected of deception (Blackburn, 2018). Fourth, this phenomenon has seemingly been accompanied by a tendency to polarise views. Finally, the manipulation of knowledge and the polarisation of views tends to fuel ‘conspiracy’ theories.

                https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038521994039

          • Ad 3.1.1.1.2
            14 April 2023 at 5:16 pm

            Like most things regulatory, it awaits EU leadership.

        • weka 3.1.1.2
          14 April 2023 at 1:48 pm

          Here's the problem. While I agree with you in principle, and def something needs to be done about SM, who decides what is ok to publish or not?

          In the case of The Standard, you can't defame someone (because that causes legal problems for the Trust), you can't advocate violence (because that's really fucking stupid in civil debate and contributes to escalations), you can post political points abhorrent to the moderators and authors but there are limits (I recently moderated a comment for using the term eunuch in reference to TW, people have been banned here for calling women cunts), if you make claims of fact you have to be able to back them up, if you quote you have to link so that people don't use other people's words out of context or to skew the meaning/debate, and so on.

          I often find myself thinking in twitter debates that the problem is lack of such a moderation policy. Esp the one about backing up claims of fact. But moderation is a LOT of work, I'm not sure how it could even work on twitter or FB or Tiktok because of the sheer workload.

          Maybe platforms should be sectioned into communities and each community has to have its own moderators and moderations platform. But Reddit is a good example of how that can fail due to ideology (you can have communities that allow gross misogyny but other communities get banned for trying to have lesbian spaces that are female only). So it still comes back to who decides?

          FB, twitter etc are clearly designed by two driving forces: profit, and lack of social intelligence. I'm sure there's legal redress to prioritise community wellbeing ahead of profit, but I'm not sure what can be done about the latter that wouldn't make right wing people's heads explode.

          • miravox 3.1.1.2.1
            14 April 2023 at 4:05 pm

            I found it was time to leave Twitter – the comments were getting far too much.

            Anyway when Musk bought Twitter I saaid I'd stay as long I was helping him lose money, but he now says he's breaking even, so on two counts was time to leave it to the profiteers.

            • weka 3.1.1.2.1.1
              14 April 2023 at 4:28 pm

              did you leave other social media as well?

              • Ad …
                14 April 2023 at 5:14 pm

                Obviously not you idiot.

              • miravox …
                15 April 2023 at 10:52 am

                Still present but inactive on FB and LinkedIn for family/work. But that's all.

                I dont't really see the standard as "social media" in the same context as Ad seems to – and it's comments like their response here that are one of the reasons I rarely comment these days – no need for the personal jibes.

    • Ad 3.2
      14 April 2023 at 5:13 pm

      If social media platforms were liable as publishers worldwide, we would have a stable world with left leaning governments everywhere.

      Good on you Sanctuary.

  4. Anker 4
    14 April 2023 at 12:39 pm

    Sanctuary that is the point Nadine made. We already have laws such as libel and sedition.

    Across the Western world some govts are looking to bring in hate speech laws, most importantly in this country.

    These are the types of laws Nadine was talking about and why the backfire.

  5. SPC 5
    14 April 2023 at 5:38 pm

    Sunak clarifies the Starmer stammer.

    the right – 100% of women do not have a penis

    the left – 99.9% of women do not have a penis

    Preparing the way for their Home Secretary to look at their law (some people were allowed to identify as transgender woman while with a penis under their manged process).

    In an interview with the website Conservative Home Sunak said that while the government needed to have "compassion, understanding and tolerance for those who are thinking about their gender" this could not interfere with the rights of biological women.

    He also hinted that the government was likely to amend the Equality Act, introducing explicit legal protections for biological women in same-sex spaces such as changing rooms and hospital wards.

    "As a general operating principle for me, biological sex is vitally fundamentally important in these questions," Sunak said. "And that's why we need to make sure, particularly when it comes to women's health, women's sports or indeed spaces, that we're protecting those rights and those places."

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/uk/300853806/uk-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-says-that-no-one-with-a-penis-could-be-considered-a-woman

    One wonders if those born female and who identify as transgender men will face the same biological sex determinants – and if so whether they use women's spaces (they won't be able to compete in women's sports because of their male hormone use).

  6. newsense 6
    14 April 2023 at 9:50 pm

    Good news everyone!

    According to the breathless headline/ cowardly hit piece run top of the Herald website currently the CEO went home during the flood! It’s his fault and the third choice right wing candidate who likes blaming everyone else and talking to no one is fine.

    The insanity of this. He fronts yesterday, apologizes, sets a few deadlines, promises to check back in and insults no one and this is done. The heat is gone and the issues are buried. By refusing interviews he continues to underline his issues and by having this attack run the story continues. And that story is his unsuitability for the job at hand.