Simon O'Connor: Control, curate, and censor

The motivations to stop using X - be it media or now the Clerk of New Zealand's parliament - are couched in moral terms by opponents, but it's all really about control, curation, and censorship.

In what I can only describe as a rather poorly considered, and mostly likely politically motivated action - unconsciously or otherwise – the Clerk of New Zealand’s Parliament has decided that the Parliament will no longer use the social media site X (formerly Twitter).

Click image to view - The Office of the Clerk stating they will not longer be using the social media platform, X.

To be clear, this is a decision of the Parliament as an entity – not the MPs or Ministers, many of the latter who continue to use the platform to disseminate views and engage constituents.

The stated justification from the Clerk of the House is a concern around X’s AI system, Grok, and in particular its handling of deepfake and abusive imagery. This echoes the view of reporter, Andrea Vance, and her media outlet’s owner, Sinead Boucher. This is curious, although of course, one cannot prove a linkage.

Regardless of what one thinks of X, or any social media platform for that matter, it is one the most downloaded free news app in New Zealand. It is clearly how many New Zealanders are choosing to access their news. Yes, X comes with a whole array of terrible material too, but that is not unique to X. In fact, when one considers that the head of Meta is currently admitting in open court that they have failed to protect kids under 13, one might ask when the Parliament is going to drop posting to Meta’s platforms?

If the Parliamentary Service wants to be consistent, then many more social media channels need to be closed as well. This would fly in the face of the, now somewhat ironic, stated intent to be as accessible as possible.

So it is peculiar that only X has been targeted, and one cannot help speculate that all the formal excuses are just a cover for not liking X, Elon Musk, or that the platform has arguably the broadest approach to free speech.

Ultimately, there is a clear perception of bias behind the decision – whether real or not is secondary. For a constitutional role, at the heart of our parliamentary system, and which is to be assiduously neutral, the decision could not look more compromised.

I think important to make a quick point that much of this obnoxious content, and certainly the AI functionality (again, not unique to X), is more often than not, user initiated.

As New Zealand Herald writer, Fran O’Sullivan noted “X remains a superb platform if you curate it”. And that is the key – for those who use it responsibly, it is an excellent platform for sourcing news.

Which leads us to the rather extraordinary opinion piece in The Post by reporter Andrea Vance. She writes that politicians using X are effectively supporting and encouraging child abuse. It was a masterclass in abstraction, exaggeration, and a poorly hidden agenda.

Echoed by the owner of Stuff, Sinead Boucher on a LinkedIn post, both made the claim that because X is so ridden with smut, filth, pornography, and vice that anyone using it – particularly politicians – are effectively aiding and abetting such things. The accusation did not extend to their fellow reporters and others who use X, but directed solely at politicians.

You might have thought that both Vance and Boucher had mistakenly picked up their own publications - filled with cheap clickbait, pornography promotion, degradation of women (think of Vance’s earlier article abusing a female Member of Parliament while simultaneously decrying misogyny and abuse of women), promotion of the chemicalisation and mutilation of children – and mistaken it for X.

Just like X, mainstream media can be mixture of gold and utter drivel, insight and insanity.

Strikingly, Vance et al haven’t commented on the likes of BlueSky – a social media site that has become a left wing leviathan, devouring itself in ever increasing violent wokery, as each progressive voice tries to out virtue, out perform, the next.

And so, the progressives preferred narrative around X is as The Post has pushed, and Clerk of the House echoed, that it is solely a site of exploration and abuse. But this narrative is not simply for the purpose of opinion, but to further political and financial aims.

Many in mainstream media want to restore their ability to control, censor, and curate the narrative. Sadly, the Office of the Clerk’s decision also plays into the censorship side.

Some mainstream media outlets have become used to controlling what their audience sees, reads, and hears.

This is also about mainstream media struggling as alternative media, like X, grows. Mainstream media’s business model is failing partly due to simple commercial competition, but also audiences sick of having ideologically infused views thrust into just about every story and perspective.

We no longer need to buy a physical newspaper or even subscribe to get behind a paywall. Instead we can get our news from X and a myriad of other avenues.

Instead of reporters like Vance or owners like Boucher, reflecting their own editorial choices, they instead seek to remove the competition. Instead of incorporating a wider set of views, allowing debate and contention, they instead generate misdirected moral outrages – again to remove competition, rather than responding competitively.

I would suggest, the best way to diminish X’s influence is to write better content. Content that doesn’t talk down on people, mocking those with different views, or simply censoring views they disagree with.

It will be still be a challenge, for technologically, the media landscape has changed. As someone who hosts regular podcasts and online radio, as well as writing here on Substack, I am daily part of this change. That you are reading this makes you part of the change too.

But we are also seeing the rise of citizen journalism. Via the likes of X, we can access and see/hear from ourselves what is happening. We no longer need the news curated by a mainstream outlet. Worse still for many in mainstream media, their views and reporting angles have been called out by the likes of X simply putting up the actual footage or audio to events.

The now (in)famous CNN report of how protests were supposedly 

“mostly peaceful”, which was absurdly and obviously false.

The reasons being put forward to leave or ban X are cheap and fragile, and as such, most see the motivations behind such calls. In doing so, be it mainstream media or our Parliament, they harm only themselves. And due to this, no one wins.

We need a strong fourth estate, but op-eds such as those we are discussing here (free as they are to write them!) and the arrogance within, is self-inflicting damage. Media leaders continue to blame their readers and viewers, not themselves, for the problems they face. There is little self-reflection that what is happening is an own goal by a media increasingly out of step with the views and expressions of their readers/viewers.

Due to the likes of X, people have a new avenue to approach information, knowledge, and truth.

What Stuff (and other mainstream media) wants is for all political messages to come via them. To be curated by them. And it seems, our Parliament only wants to share information to the approved platforms of some, not the many.

I would make one final point. Whether mainstream media or the Clerk of the House, they once delighted in X. When it was dominated by the progressive left wing and alternative voices were canceled, it was a platform to be celebrated. They were all on there.

Once ownership and philosophy changed – notably to a libertarian, light handed oversight – the appreciation for X cooled considerably. It seems that freedom of speech - according to the mainstream media - is not to be celebrated, but attacked.

As some have written, something once deemed desirous is now seen as dangerous. Whether you like X or not; use X or not; it remains a tool for gaining information. Yes, it can be misused too, but as we have seen with many mainstream reporters and outlets, misuse and manipulation of the truth is not the sole monopoly of X.

Simon O'Connor a former National MP graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Political Studies . Simon blogs at On Point - where this article was sourced.