Note that NZ law is written so that this means it was always in this state from its creation (not just from the point of classification).
People found doing so could face up to 14 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine, there's already one person in jail for doing this.
NZ ISPs are blocking the IP addresses of websites that are hosting this video.
I'm a little conflicted about this. As a NZ'er the chief censor[1] has always done a decent job, we've never had to debate the issue of censorship in NZ much before. In this case the ability to retroactively label something criminal, and someone to face charges for it feels unjust.
On the other hand, and details are light at this point, this one person who is being charged allegedly mirrored the live stream during the event, cheered it on in his comments, and may have posted inciting materials prior to the attack (a picture of the mosque captioned "target acquired", but it's not clear based on the public information yet if this was posted before or on the day of the event).
[1] The idea of a chief censor may seem really appalling to many reading this, I encourage you to actually research what they do and the legislation they operate under before casting an opinion on it. Essentially the role is to provide ratings on media items, and rarely outright censor things. In the past day to day shit for them meant watching DVDs of rape videos and crap like that coming through the physical borders.
Why does that factor in? New Zealand has (or had?) pretty strong protection for freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
That doesn't necessarily make it okay, but obviously a lot of Kiwi's have downloaded and shared and watched this video, but this is the only case I know of where someone was arrested for it.
> A second charge alleges that between the 8th and the 15th of March, he showed a photograph of the Deans Avenue mosque with the message “target acquired” and further chat messaging around inciting extreme violence constituting one of the offences.[1]
The 15th is the day of the attack, so as the grandparent comment said, it's unclear if he posted the image in advance of the attack, but it all sounds pretty dodgy.
[1] https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/03/18yo-in-c...
That balance does seem to have mostly been made in a way that most people are comfortable with these days (the proctor of Otago University being a gross exception)
I read about it and I lost a lot of respect for New Zealand. It surprised me, because I really didn't expect another first world country to be this weak on freedom of expression. I guess I was unaware of the culture.
Our culture is not perfect, but measure us by our response to this, and other, tragic events.
- arrests
- suppression of objectionable materials that could stoke the fires and cause more deaths, possibly from copy-cats
- identity suppression so that the killer will not be martyred
- a huge focus on the victims
- a swift change of gun laws
As opposed to the US, where it would be:
- thoughts and prayers
- "We should change gun laws. Not us, though, we want to get re-elected!" ~ President
- the killer's name and photo plastered over every newspaper, television, and website
Maybe if his manifesto wasn't illegal to read, they could read it and maybe see that they are so caught up in the emotional signalling they are doing exactly what the shooter wanted them to do.
Yeah, bloody terrible response.
You mean, your country doesn't have media ratings or censorship of any kind in the public good? None at all?
Unless you live on the moon…
This crosses a line between discouraging horrific material being easily available by pressuring Facebook, which practically speaking makes sense because people who wouldn't want to see it might see it, and a ban on facts. If they can ban this video, could they also ban videos of police or military abuses of power produced by a private citizen?
It isn't even an obviously good idea socially, that video (which I have not seen) is presumably one of the most pro-Muslim and pro-gun-control pieces of propaganda to be produced in the last 30 years. There is no pressure group that supports gunning down peaceful people at prayer time.
In theory no. The censor operates independently under strict legislation and decisions can (I believe based on memory of previous instances) be challenged in court.
So such an example as above wouldn't be censored because it wouldn't be injurious to the public good. Quite the opposite, such a video would be for the public good.
Banning it would require some kind of authoritarian capture of both the censor's office and the the judicial system to enforce. Certainly if somehow NZ became an authoritarian state then the censor could be used to those ends, but by that point authoritarian states don't exactly care about law or process or political interference when it comes to censorship anyway.
Meaningless political theater. This is like trying to divorce the king in a country with lese majeste. If you cannot know what's in the video, how could you possibly ask for it in court, without admitting that you illegally watched the video?
The best word to describe New Zealand right now is Kafka-esque.
You're confusing having seen objectionable material with distributing that objectionable material. It's the distribution that is an offense.
That said, possession, distribution and (I believe!) consumption of objectionable material are all considered an offence. The cops and the courts exercise discretion here.
Nah. The most relaxed way to live is knowing your government won't arrest you because you watched a video before it was declared illegal.
There likely is discretion involved and the law probably needs some updating. The DIA website on this [1] makes it clear their concern is really around collection and "trade" of objectionable material. Not random people accidently viewing it (or even curious rubberneckers going for a look). It was much easier in a time when the law was largely written, and obtaining objectionable material meant having an actual physical copy. You most likely knew you were getting an objectionable DVD or book because you had to go to a back alley to buy it off a guy. The law couldn't anticipate people opening Facebook to find an autoplaying video of a massacre, hence why you're right wrt discretion that's probably in use now.
This is striking below the belt and I apologize, but:
I am sure a Chinese citizen would say the same. In public. When their government is monitoring.
>Anybody found “knowingly” in possession of objectionable material can receive a maximum of 10 years imprisonment.
>Every time a person downloads objectionable material onto their screen, there is the potential for a possession offence having been committed.
>> If this happens to you, just leave the site immediately.
You shouldn't knowingly go seeking it out this video. Just like you shouldn't knowingly go seeking out child porn. If you do, as I'm sure a lot have, just make sure you don't knowingly keep a copy on your computer.
And by knowingly don't be a smartass about it and try to hide it thinking you can pretend you didn't know. Seriously just don't keep a copy and clear your cache.
Failing to take a stand means that ultimately the most intolerant place gets to censor the internet. You may remember that the Taliban banned all photos of humans, even if clothed and male.
I just wanna read about TurboGrafx and Sega Genesis...
If other sites are co-located with the places carrying the snuff film then they're IMHO shit out of luck, it's the company that you keep that we know you by.
Personally I haven't read what the motivations were behind the initial block that these ISPs put in very quickly after the attack. (Don't know if there's any threads on NZNOG about it, haven't gone looking.) One possibility, I had was the operations folk were trying to block suspicious sites in case they were being used for communication or would prompt further incidents in what was then an unfolding terrorist attack.
That the blocks continue now is something that should be discussed in the NZ ISP community. Do we want ISPs to be able to make unilateral blocking decisions or should they be legally required to be neutral? Maybe this will shape a future net neutrality law.
In 2008 there was a minor diplomatic incident between Finland and Thailand. Finnish police kept a list meant to block child porn websites, they just didn't do a very good job about it. The police had blocked a Thai portal that contained, among other things, memorial pages for a recently passed away Thai princess. Thailand happens to be quite serious about their royalty and offenses about their dignity. The portal probably contained other sections, and maybe some actual cp had been posted in some discussion boards there, who knows.
But that's not how the Thai government wanted to see the case, when they were told that a princess' memorial site was blocked in Finland with a police notice about cp. (If you did the same in Thailand, it could be up to 15 years in prison.)
There were some talks about Thailand withdrawing their ambassador from Finland, but the diplomatic crisis got resolved.
Beyond the double standards and collateral damage a question should be raised; is blocking these sites actually stopping the spread of the video, or is it creating a taboo and playing into the exact kind of conspiratorial disinformation the shooter believed? Obviously the video is vile, but by taking such extreme reactions don't we just give ammunition to the people who believe like the shooter and reenforce their misheld belief of being victims?
The ISPs opt into a filter, but the government runs the filter... and if all the ISPs have opted in, and the government is running the filter, then is it not the government doing the censorship?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_New_Zea...
Also, you act like countries have no leverage against these platforms. Maybe NZ should levy a 50% tax on all advertising revenue made by facebook in NZ?
> Failing to take a stand means that ultimately the most intolerant place gets to censor the internet. You may remember that the Taliban banned all photos of humans, even if clothed and male.
Also note how they haven't removed all photos of humans just because the Taliban banned those.
Many people spent countless hours in the aftermath of the attack doing what they could to minimise the harm from this one moron and his muppet allies. To do otherwise would not be human, and, though it isn't the first reason, would also see that ISP rejected by New Zealand households. NZer