on September 20, 2022, after the Leaders Summit (Screen Grab)
Venkat Raman
Auckland, September 25, 2022
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants a joint action of world leaders to tackle the challenges posed by hate speech and the spread of falsehood.
She addressed the follow-on of terrorism as a threat that needs immediate attention.
Terrorism and its associated evils were a part of her speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 23, 2022.
She said that New Zealand faced a serious challenge on March 15, 2019, when a terrorist attack on Muslims praying in Mosques in Christchurch left 51 people dead.
“The attack was live-streamed on a popular social media platform to gain notoriety, and to spread hate,” she said.
Christchurch Call to Action
Ms Ardern has since then garnered the support of many leaders and multinationals to address the menace effectively. She launched the ‘Christchurch Call to Action,’ jointly with President of France Emmanuel Macron.
The Christchurch Call is a community of over 120 governments, online service providers, and civil society organisations acting together to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. The Third Leaders’ Summit of this Organisation was held in New York on 20 September 2022, attended by leaders from across government, online service providers, and civil society.
The Summit provided the leaders with a platform to consider the community’s priorities, articulate their own priorities, and provide strategic direction for the coming year.
The leaders also considered future challenges and opportunities, including how new technology might impact the Call community’s work. The discussion centred on three topics: (1) Incident response, and the ongoing challenge of terrorist and violent extremist content (2) Algorithms, radicalisation, and gender (3) Future focus of the Call, new technology, and youth.
Recalling the days following March 15, 2019, Ms Ardern told the UN General Assembly that at that time, the ability to thwart the goals of extremists was limited.
“The chances of government alone being able to resolve this gap was equally challenging. That is why alongside President Emmanuel Macron we created the Christchurch Call to Action. The Call Community has worked together to address terrorism and violent extremist content online. As this important work progresses, we have demonstrated the impact we can have by working together collaboratively,” she said.
Crisis reaction improved
Ms Ardern said that since then New Zealand and other governments have improved crisis reactions, stymieing the ability to live stream attacks, and created crisis protocols to prevent proliferation. The focus has been on prevention and understanding the interactions between the online environment and the real world that can lead to radicalisation.
“This week, we launched an initiative alongside companies and non-profits to help improve research and understanding of how a person’s online experiences are curated by automated processes. This will also be important in understanding more about misinformation and disinformation online. A challenge that we must as leaders address,” she said.
“Sadly, I think it is easy to dismiss this problem as one in the margins. I can certainly understand the desire to leave it to someone else. As leaders, we are rightly concerned that even those most light-touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as being hostile to the values of free speech we value so highly. But while I cannot tell you today what the answer is to this challenge, I can say with complete certainty that we cannot ignore it. To do so poses an equal threat to the norms we all value,” she said.
Ms Ardern asked how can any government end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble.
“How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to the hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?” she asked.
“The weapons may be different, but the goals of those who perpetrate them are often the same. To cause chaos and reduce the ability of others to defend themselves. To disband communities. To collapse the collective strength of countries who work together,” Ms Ardern said.
