Ben Espinar: Businesses should keep out of social issues

We the general public have more than enough people lecturing us about politics, we don’t need our broadband providers chiming in as well

Spark attracted criticism recently after the company tweeted its support for a social media post made by transgender activist and young New Zealander of the year Shaneel Lal, calling for the banning and exclusion of ‘TERFS’ from Meta’s new Threads app.

The term TERF, Trans exclusionary radical feminist, was coined by trans activists and rainbow groups to refer, often in a derogatory manner and often in the context of promoting violence or social exclusion, to those who disagree with certain aspects of trans culture, or the actions of transexual public figures.

Peter Williams: Telcos should be telcos

How did Spark and One NZ get tangled up in a transgender spat?

Somehow the country’s major telcos have finished up in a stupid social media spat fueled by rent-a-quote and trouble maker Shaneel Lal.

The new app Threads had hardly hit the market late last week when Lal was on the case.

A message went on the app which said “Dear Threaders, Can we agree that we won’t tolerate TERFs on Threads. They’ve made the lives of trans-people living hell on almost all platforms. Let’s not allow their hatred to poison this app too. Requested with love. “