Former New Zealand PM appointed to new world government censorship role

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week was appointed as the special envoy for Christchurch Call, an organization of world governments and large tech corporations dedicated to removing “terrorism and violent extremism” online.

Jacinda Ardern, who assumed office in 2017 and resigned in December 2022, became known for her totalitarian leadership style during COVID-19, which included threats to ban summer unless enough Kiwis took the COVID-19 injections. 

In 2020 Ardern instructed citizens to only believe information disseminated by the government.  

“We will continue to be your single source of truth,” Ardern said at a press conference. “Unless you hear it from us it is not the truth," she added, urging citizens to “dismiss anything else”.

The prime minister imposed such strict travel restrictions on the country that a pregnant woman abroad, barred from entering New Zealand despite being thrice vaccinated, was forced to turn to the Taliban for protection. 

In 2021 Ardern made clear that she wanted to separate the country into “classes” of vaccinated and unvaccinated with only the vaccinated allowed civil rights. 

"You've basically said, and you probably don't see it like this, but two different classes of people if you're vaccinated or unvaccinated. If you're vaccinated you have all these rights," asked a journalist from the New Zealand Herald. 

"That is what it is, yep," responded Ardern, nodding and smiling.

Ardern’s autocratic approach was not limited to COVID-19. Last year, she proposed taxing farmers for the “greenhouse gas emissions” resulting from their livestock’s burps and urine. Under the proposal, farmers who meet a certain herd or fertilizer threshold will be forced to pay the government a tax every one to three years. While farmers oppose the plan Ardern insists they support the move. 

In 2019 Ardern began implementing heavy weapons bans in response to a mass shooting in Christchurch which killed over 50 Muslims. She also joined France President Emmanuel Macron in creating Christchurch Call, an initiative which aims to “eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online,” and successfully pushed social media companies to crack down on users who shared the shooter’s video.

Christchurch Call prevails upon governments and online service providers, such as social media companies, to “[d]evelop effective interventions, based on trusted information sharing about the effects of algorithmic and other processes, to redirect users from terrorist and violent extremist content.”

Now New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has appointed Ardern as special envoy, a new position created specifically for her.

“Jacinda Ardern’s leadership on the Christchurch Call has already made New Zealand, and the world, a safer place,” Chris Hipkins said in a statement last week.

“The Christchurch Call is an unprecedented global initiative working across governments, the tech sector, and civil society to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. It has delivered new safety tools and systems online, backed by many of those running the platforms on which this content is shared.”

But while Christchurch Call’s website does not appear to define “terrorism and violent extremism,” Ardern’s administration had already described the term to include those who disagree with the government’s COVID-19 policies.

The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) last year published a guide titled, “Know the Signs: A guide for identifying signs of violent extremism” to help Kiwis identify potential terrorists in their midst. 

While the guide itself does not specify any one ideology, NZSIS Director-General Rebecca Kitteridge singled out those who were unhappy with the country’s harsh COVID restrictions or any feeling of rights infringement. 

"So it could be the COVID measures that the Government took, or it could be other policies that are interpreted as infringing on rights and it's a kind of what I describe as a hot mess of ideologies and beliefs fuelled by conspiracy theories," Kitteridge said.

The guide is “asking people to report any behaviours or activities they come across that resemble any of the indicators described in this guide, or that feel concerning.” 

The NZSIS also notes that the guide specifically focuses on extremist acts that “become, or there is an intention that they become, violent.” As for non-violent forms of extremism, the NZSIS does not say they are covered under freedom of expression, but instead “lie outside the purpose of this booklet and outside NZSIS’s areas of focus.” 

Four categories of motivation are included in the guide: faith-motivated violent extremism, political-motivated violent extremism, identity-motivated violent extremism, and single-issue-motivated violent extremism. 

The guide then lists 52 indicators Kiwis can use to determine if a fellow citizen is a threat, including a “hostile Us-versus-Them worldview.” 

This is characterized by making “dehumanising, hostile or violent statements against individuals or groups they perceive as ‘the enemy’ or the ‘other’,” which would seemingly include calling those who did not take the COVID shots “the enemy”. 

Another indicator of violent extremism is someone who tries to not be tracked on the internet and “conceals their online activities by using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or proxy servers,” a common technique among users who try to access sites like Netflix not available in their location. 

Violent extremists may also use “fake names, aliases or pseudonyms when online or within specific communities,” or they may create “exclusive groups on secure forums or messaging apps” such as Signal or Telegram. These apps are used by many who wish to speak freely without fear of being monitored or censored by mainstream social media platforms. 

The guide then provides information on how to contact the authorities to inform on someone, even anonymously. 

"Recognising a potential warning sign and then alerting New Zealand SIS or police could be the vital piece in the puzzle that ultimately saves lives," said Kitteridge.