8 ms·

It should be noted that this video has been rated the video as 'objectionable', a technical term making it illegal to share, possess or distribute. Note that N

It should be noted that this video has been rated the video as 'objectionable', a technical term making it illegal to share, possess or distribute. Note that NZ law is written so that this means it was always in this state from its creation (not just from the point of classification). People found doing so could face up to 14 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine, there's already one person in jail for doing this. NZ ISPs are blocking the IP addresses of websites that are hosting this video.

roenxi 8y ago
> a technical term making it illegal to share, possess or distribute. This crosses a line between discouraging horrific material being easily available by pressuring Facebook, which practically speaking makes sense because people who wouldn't want to see it might see it, and a ban on facts. If they can ban this video, could they also ban videos of police or military abuses of power produced by a private citizen? It isn't even an obviously good idea socially, that video (which I have not seen) is presumably one of the most pro-Muslim and pro-gun-control pieces of propaganda to be produced in the last 30 years. There is no pressure group that supports gunning down peaceful people at prayer time.
- erentz 8y ago
  > If they can ban this video, could they also ban videos of police or military abuses of power produced by a private citizen? In theory no. The censor operates independently under strict legislation and decisions can (I believe based on memory of previous instances) be challenged in court. So such an example as above wouldn't be censored because it wouldn't be injurious to the public good. Quite the opposite, such a video would be for the public good. Banning it would require some kind of authoritarian capture of both the censor's office and the the judicial system to enforce. Certainly if somehow NZ became an authoritarian state then the censor could be used to those ends, but by that point authoritarian states don't exactly care about law or process or political interference when it comes to censorship anyway.
  - tathougies 8y ago
    > The censor operates independently under strict legislation and decisions can (I believe based on memory of previous instances) be challenged in court Meaningless political theater. This is like trying to divorce the king in a country with lese majeste. If you cannot know what's in the video, how could you possibly ask for it in court, without admitting that you illegally watched the video? The best word to describe New Zealand right now is Kafka-esque.
    - erentz 8y ago
      > you illegally watched the video You're confusing having seen objectionable material with distributing that objectionable material. It's the distribution that is an offense.
      - Taniwha 8y ago
        well did you make a copy of the film when you watched it? (remember the law includes having a copy of the film, not just distribution or publishing)
      - tathougies 8y ago
        Distinction without a difference. Only a lawyer will stand a chance to argue in front of a court competently. Thus, they or their client or someone will have had to have distributed the video to them in order to successfully argue the case. Like I said, kafka-esque.
      - frio 8y ago
        I think there's a real cultural clash between NZ and the US style of politics that is readily visible in this thread. Our censors have most visibly banned a few videogames in their time, but as an office, I think most kiwis accept the role they have in society and are happy for them to do their job. The political fearmongering about Government overreach that the US seems to have hasn't fully infected us yet; we still kinda like our Government and aren't particularly afraid of them. I hope that stays true, it seems like a happier and more relaxed way to live. That said, possession, distribution and (I believe!) consumption of objectionable material are all considered an offence. The cops and the courts exercise discretion here.
frio 8y ago
They're also begging for change: https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/385098/new-zealand-internet-providers-send-open-letter-to-social-media-providers https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/385098/new-zealand-i...
erentz 8y ago
> there's already one person in jail for doing this. I'm a little conflicted about this. As a NZ'er the chief censor[1] has always done a decent job, we've never had to debate the issue of censorship in NZ much before. In this case the ability to retroactively label something criminal, and someone to face charges for it feels unjust. On the other hand, and details are light at this point, this one person who is being charged allegedly mirrored the live stream during the event, cheered it on in his comments, and may have posted inciting materials prior to the attack (a picture of the mosque captioned "target acquired", but it's not clear based on the public information yet if this was posted before or on the day of the event). [1] The idea of a chief censor may seem really appalling to many reading this, I encourage you to actually research what they do and the legislation they operate under before casting an opinion on it. Essentially the role is to provide ratings on media items, and rarely outright censor things. In the past day to day shit for them meant watching DVDs of rape videos and crap like that coming through the physical borders.
- Taniwha 8y ago
  It's interesting that NZ and Australia share their censorship process, movie ratings from one country apply in the other (avoiding the cost of having a movie rated more than once), I wonder if this applies here to?
  - Taniwha 8y ago
    I should add that ratings don't directly correspond, but there is some joint process
- ng12 8y ago
  > this one person who is being charged allegedly mirrored the live stream during the event, cheered it on in his comments, and may have posted inciting materials prior to the attack Why does that factor in? New Zealand has (or had?) pretty strong protection for freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
  - erentz 8y ago
burfog 8y ago
New Zealand would cave in 24 hours if all the big internet companies presented a unified front against the censorship, making the video available within https as part of every service. There is no way New Zealand would cut off every email provider, every VPN provider, facebook, twitter, every search engine home page, etc. Failing to take a stand means that ultimately the most intolerant place gets to censor the internet. You may remember that the Taliban banned all photos of humans, even if clothed and male.
- Taniwha 8y ago
  Yes but humans are basically decent, remember this is a snuff film, not bambi
  - PostOnce 8y ago
    They're also blocking 4channel.org (which is the worksafe, e.g. retro gaming, version of 4chan, /pol and /b etc are on 4chan.org) and zerohedge and others not sharing the video. I just wanna read about TurboGrafx and Sega Genesis...
    - erentz 8y ago
      Technical point. "They" in this case is not the NZ government, it's assorted ISPs in NZ who quickly and independently decided to do this after the event.
      - deminature 8y ago
        These sites are usually only blocked via DNS and still accessible via their IP.
      - Taniwha 8y ago
        Yes exactly, the NZ ISPs decided unilaterally to ban access to places that were hosting the snuff film within hours of the terrorist attack, this wasn't a government action. If other sites are co-located with the places carrying the snuff film then they're IMHO shit out of luck, it's the company that you keep that we know you by.
Taniwha 8y ago
I should add that there's now media reports (NZ Herald) of several people in NZ being fired for watching the snuff film at work - makes sense since it puts their employer in a liability situation

roenxi 8y ago

> a technical term making it illegal to share, possess or distribute. This crosses a line between discouraging horrific material being easily available by pressuring Facebook, which practically speaking makes sense because people who wouldn't want to see it might see it, and a ban on facts. If they can ban this video, could they also ban videos of police or military abuses of power produced by a private citizen? It isn't even an obviously good idea socially, that video (which I have not seen) is presumably one of the most pro-Muslim and pro-gun-control pieces of propaganda to be produced in the last 30 years. There is no pressure group that supports gunning down peaceful people at prayer time.

erentz 8y ago
> If they can ban this video, could they also ban videos of police or military abuses of power produced by a private citizen? In theory no. The censor operates independently under strict legislation and decisions can (I believe based on memory of previous instances) be challenged in court. So such an example as above wouldn't be censored because it wouldn't be injurious to the public good. Quite the opposite, such a video would be for the public good. Banning it would require some kind of authoritarian capture of both the censor's office and the the judicial system to enforce. Certainly if somehow NZ became an authoritarian state then the censor could be used to those ends, but by that point authoritarian states don't exactly care about law or process or political interference when it comes to censorship anyway.
- tathougies 8y ago
  > The censor operates independently under strict legislation and decisions can (I believe based on memory of previous instances) be challenged in court Meaningless political theater. This is like trying to divorce the king in a country with lese majeste. If you cannot know what's in the video, how could you possibly ask for it in court, without admitting that you illegally watched the video? The best word to describe New Zealand right now is Kafka-esque.
  - erentz 8y ago
    > you illegally watched the video You're confusing having seen objectionable material with distributing that objectionable material. It's the distribution that is an offense.
    - Taniwha 8y ago
      well did you make a copy of the film when you watched it? (remember the law includes having a copy of the film, not just distribution or publishing)
    - tathougies 8y ago
      Distinction without a difference. Only a lawyer will stand a chance to argue in front of a court competently. Thus, they or their client or someone will have had to have distributed the video to them in order to successfully argue the case. Like I said, kafka-esque.
    - frio 8y ago
      I think there's a real cultural clash between NZ and the US style of politics that is readily visible in this thread. Our censors have most visibly banned a few videogames in their time, but as an office, I think most kiwis accept the role they have in society and are happy for them to do their job. The political fearmongering about Government overreach that the US seems to have hasn't fully infected us yet; we still kinda like our Government and aren't particularly afraid of them. I hope that stays true, it seems like a happier and more relaxed way to live. That said, possession, distribution and (I believe!) consumption of objectionable material are all considered an offence. The cops and the courts exercise discretion here.

frio 8y ago

They're also begging for change: https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/385098/new-zealand-internet-providers-send-open-letter-to-social-media-providers https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/385098/new-zealand-i...

erentz 8y ago

> there's already one person in jail for doing this. I'm a little conflicted about this. As a NZ'er the chief censor[1] has always done a decent job, we've never had to debate the issue of censorship in NZ much before. In this case the ability to retroactively label something criminal, and someone to face charges for it feels unjust. On the other hand, and details are light at this point, this one person who is being charged allegedly mirrored the live stream during the event, cheered it on in his comments, and may have posted inciting materials prior to the attack (a picture of the mosque captioned "target acquired", but it's not clear based on the public information yet if this was posted before or on the day of the event). [1] The idea of a chief censor may seem really appalling to many reading this, I encourage you to actually research what they do and the legislation they operate under before casting an opinion on it. Essentially the role is to provide ratings on media items, and rarely outright censor things. In the past day to day shit for them meant watching DVDs of rape videos and crap like that coming through the physical borders.

Taniwha 8y ago
It's interesting that NZ and Australia share their censorship process, movie ratings from one country apply in the other (avoiding the cost of having a movie rated more than once), I wonder if this applies here to?
- Taniwha 8y ago
  I should add that ratings don't directly correspond, but there is some joint process
ng12 8y ago
> this one person who is being charged allegedly mirrored the live stream during the event, cheered it on in his comments, and may have posted inciting materials prior to the attack Why does that factor in? New Zealand has (or had?) pretty strong protection for freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
- erentz 8y ago

burfog 8y ago

New Zealand would cave in 24 hours if all the big internet companies presented a unified front against the censorship, making the video available within https as part of every service. There is no way New Zealand would cut off every email provider, every VPN provider, facebook, twitter, every search engine home page, etc. Failing to take a stand means that ultimately the most intolerant place gets to censor the internet. You may remember that the Taliban banned all photos of humans, even if clothed and male.

Taniwha 8y ago
Yes but humans are basically decent, remember this is a snuff film, not bambi
- PostOnce 8y ago
  They're also blocking 4channel.org (which is the worksafe, e.g. retro gaming, version of 4chan, /pol and /b etc are on 4chan.org) and zerohedge and others not sharing the video. I just wanna read about TurboGrafx and Sega Genesis...
  - erentz 8y ago
    Technical point. "They" in this case is not the NZ government, it's assorted ISPs in NZ who quickly and independently decided to do this after the event.
    - deminature 8y ago
      These sites are usually only blocked via DNS and still accessible via their IP.
    - Taniwha 8y ago
      Yes exactly, the NZ ISPs decided unilaterally to ban access to places that were hosting the snuff film within hours of the terrorist attack, this wasn't a government action. If other sites are co-located with the places carrying the snuff film then they're IMHO shit out of luck, it's the company that you keep that we know you by.

Taniwha 8y ago

I should add that there's now media reports (NZ Herald) of several people in NZ being fired for watching the snuff film at work - makes sense since it puts their employer in a liability situation