Cam Slater: Oh, So Now You’re Concerned?

After playing at being propagandists and Ardern’s little cheerleaders as she stomped all over our rights during Covid and after taking massive bribes in the form of funding from the Public Interest Journalism Fund, the legacy media are now all of a sudden concerned at the Government’s over-reach in the form of draconian new proposals to regulate media.

New Zealand media outlets are concerned about the impacts on their freedom after the Government announced a proposal to reduce harmful content online.

Earlier this week, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) proposed new reforms for safer media and online platforms. It would mean social media platforms would be forced to abide by a mandatory code of conduct.

The proposals would also change the way traditional media outlets are regulated.

NZME/NZ Herald editor-at-large Shayne Currie said current regulations are a “little messy” with lots of different regulatory bodies, but what the Government is proposing over and above those industry bodies is a “superpower”.

Currie, who made the comments on Newshub Nation’s political panel, said he has spoken to New Zealand news outlets and the general reaction goes from “very cautious” to “deep concern” about freedom of the press.

“It’s important that there’s nothing preemptive or prescriptive in this new superpower that can sort of dictate where the media is going,” Currie said.

While the DIA said it doesn’t have any editorial control, Currie said where the concern may come in is around the principals [sic] themselves and how ‘harm’ is defined – which previously caused problems for New Zealand’s hate speech laws.

Newshub

Oh, so now you’re concerned?

Where were you when it was discovered that The BFD, and me in particular, were being monitored by the nudge unit in the SPMC and by Police? Silent is what you were. You did and said nothing about those excesses.

Now the jackboot is on the other foot: while the Government’s knee is on your neck, you are “concerned”.

Too little, too late. You sold out when we were fighting for our freedoms.

The same goes for the professional grifters in the Free Speech Union, who are usually more concerned about the free speech rights of left-wing academics than actually being concerned about the erosion of our rights in general. Their commitment to free speech is only so long as their need to use events and issues to grift for funds from you.

To be fair, before they begged for money in their email, they did make some valid points:

The Department of Internal Affairs’ public consultation document proposes a new law establishing a “regulator” to oversee the modern content landscape. The Classifications Act will be gone, along with the Broadcasting Standards Authority and other industry groups.

While Parliament would establish the regulator, outlining its remit, it would be the regulator itself that decides how these powers are used.

A series of codes will be drafted to outline what content is acceptable and what content is prohibited. These codes will be written by industry, with the regulator ultimately approving them and having veto powers if they don’t go far enough.

What’s in scope? Pretty much everything. Media outlets (TV, print, radio) of course, but also some Substack accounts and personal blogs (if you’ve got a strong following). Heck, the Free Speech Union, with 80,000 supporters nationwide, would be regulated.

FSU

It is a draconian over-reach and just shows that Hipkins’s ‘policy bonfire’ was quickly put out once the docile and compliant media packed up their cameras. Their hate speech proposals were bad, but this intention to regulate media echoes the jackbooted stance of the Trudeau regime in Canada.

We will be fighting this of course, but our commitment to free speech isn’t contingent on grifting. We actually believe in these things no matter what.

Principles are principles, all the time, not just when it is convenient. We stood strong during Covid and we will stay strong in the face of this assault on our freedoms.

One thing we will not be doing is joining the Media Council, because when we were last a member it was used as a stick to beat us with by our enemies, who laid a multitude of spurious claims so that we’d expend resources fighting them.

We will just fight: it is what we are good at. There is no way we are going to voluntarily submit ourselves to the proposed media regulatory panopticon. You can’t comply your way out of tyranny – for tyranny is what it is.

These plans are about compliance and control.

We don’t need regulated news; we need more news. You don’t fight harmful ideas by censoring them; you fight them by debating them.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. This article was first published HERE