Three civil society groups working to ensure online safety in New Zealand have today announced a new initiative to improve the Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms. This Code was developed by several transnational digital platforms, as well as NZ’s non-profit online safety organisation, NetSafe, and is now hosted by NZTech.

Our main concerns with the code are:

• The Code’s self-regulation is not credible.
• The Code isn’t focused on Aotearoa.
• The Signatories’ community engagement has not been effective nor credible.

Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono (IACT), Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand, and Tohatoha have banded together to create the Coalition for Better Digital Policy, with the goal of enabling robust, inclusive, and effective regulation of technology, with a focus on upholding human rights and preserving the benefits technology can provide us.

Anjum Rahman of IACT, says that after over a year of frustrating under-engagement, the group has come to the shared conclusion that the only way forward is to open up the process and transform the Code into one with real oversight and accountability, by ensuring that it is independent and reflects community needs.

“The best way to get genuine oversight and accountability is to open the process up and #FixTheCode. Oversight and accountability can only happen in the full light of day and with input and engagement from a wide range of communities and experts,” says Lisa Woods of Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand

“Aotearoa needs to have robust, inclusive, and effective regulation of the technology industry, especially of social media platforms. And that can only come from collaboration with each other–driven by our needs, our kaupapa, and rooted in our whanaungatanga - and this is most certainly not that,” says Dr. Sarah Hendrica Bickerton of Tohatoha.

There is discussion about this as a model for the world, so let’s make it a good one. #FixTheCode

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