Online Maori have Internet representative group back

MEDIA RELEASE

Online Maori have their trusted Internet representative group back

The New Zealand Maori Internet Society Incorporated (NZMIS) has been in existence since 1997 and had become a shell organisation with no leadership or cause in recent years till its founding members resurrected the Society recently and appointed a new executive of experts consisting of Karaitiana Taiuru (Chairperson), Ross Himona (Kaumatua), Pikiora Wylie, Ivor Jones, Leona Karauria and Leon Symes.

The revived NZMIS consists of just over 2000 members and is a result of merging with the majority of other Maori ICT and Internet organisations ensuring that NZMIS can be truly representative of Maori online and put an end to non Maori representation of many significant online changes for Maori.

Alongside a new web site www.nzmis.maori.nz , NZMIS is working with a new strategy and purpose including radio spectrum, domain names, cyber safety and education.

The influence of NZMIS was recently shown while revising its structure it sought assistance from its partner Net Safe to shut down a number of racist Facebook pages which had been online for some time despite multiple attempts by the online and a government department. The issue of racism and derogatory comments about Maori has always been an issue but in recent years has become more popular with the introduction of social media such as Facebook said Taiuru.

In 2002 NZMIS was responsible for the hand back of a large amount of cyber-squatted domains back to their rightful Iwi. The Internet community has matured and it is now a waste of time cybersquatting many Maori domains, and if it does happen, NZMIS will act swiftly to ensure that there are no rules that are broken or being abused.

NZMIS have a number of strategic partners and are in discussions with other national bodies with mutual interests and objectives including the new .kiwi domain name who NZMIS negotiated a bilingual system and protection of god names.

The AGM will be held in conjunction with the popular Net Hui while in the meantime NZMIS is on a membership drive and strengthening its organisational structure.

ENDS

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