title: Regulating online hate speech and harmful content in Aotearoa New Zealand - beyond criminalisation and towards a statutory duty of care

authors: Tan, Rachel Sue Yin

abstract: This thesis examines how New Zealand regulates online hate speech and harmful content, and evaluates whether current law provides effective protection in the digital environment. The study considers how social-media platforms shape the spread of harmful expression and assesses whether New Zealand’s existing legal framework is equipped to respond to these risks while maintaining the right to freedom of expression. The central question guiding the research is whether the present approach is adequate, and what reforms may be needed to address harm more effectively.

The thesis adopts an interpretivist and qualitative methodology, drawing on doctrinal, socio-legal, comparative, and political-legal methods. It uses behavioural, regulatory, and normative theories, including the Online Disinhibition Effect, modalities of regulation, and dignity- and equality-based approaches to free expression. These perspectives help explain why harmful content escalates so quickly online and why traditional legal tools struggle to respond.

The analysis proceeds in three stages. First, it examines the operation of digital platforms, focusing on algorithmic amplification, design choices, and the limits of automated moderation. Second, it reviews New Zealand’s legal framework, including the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, the Human Rights Act 1993, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. This review shows that the current system is reactive, fragmented, and heavily dependent on voluntary platform policies. Third, the thesis draws comparative insights from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, and the European Union, where more proactive models, particularly statutory duties of care and transparency obligations, have begun to address platform-level risks.

The research concludes that New Zealand’s present approach does not adequately respond to systemic and group-based harms. It argues that a statutory duty of care, supported by risk-assessment requirements, algorithmic transparency, and proportionate safeguards for freedom of expression, offers a more effective and balanced framework. The thesis contributes to existing scholarship by integrating behavioural and regulatory theory with comparative legal analysis and by proposing a model of platform accountability tailored to Aotearoa New Zealand’s legal context and human rights commitments.

text: Regulating online hate speech and harmful content in Aotearoa New Zealand - beyond criminalisation and towards a statutory duty of care This thesis examines how New Zealand regulates online hate speech and harmful content, and evaluates whether current law provides effective protection in the digital environment. The study considers how social-media platforms shape the spread of harmful expression and assesses whether New Zealand’s existing legal framework is equipped to respond to these risks while maintaining the right to freedom of expression. The central question guiding the research is whether the present approach is adequate, and what reforms may be needed to address harm more effectively.

The thesis adopts an interpretivist and qualitative methodology, drawing on doctrinal, socio-legal, comparative, and political-legal methods. It uses behavioural, regulatory, and normative theories, including the Online Disinhibition Effect, modalities of regulation, and dignity- and equality-based approaches to free expression. These perspectives help explain why harmful content escalates so quickly online and why traditional legal tools struggle to respond.

The analysis proceeds in three stages. First, it examines the operation of digital platforms, focusing on algorithmic amplification, design choices, and the limits of automated moderation. Second, it reviews New Zealand’s legal framework, including the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, the Human Rights Act 1993, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. This review shows that the current system is reactive, fragmented, and heavily dependent on voluntary platform policies. Third, the thesis draws comparative insights from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, and the European Union, where more proactive models, particularly statutory duties of care and transparency obligations, have begun to address platform-level risks.

The research concludes that New Zealand’s present approach does not adequately respond to systemic and group-based harms. It argues that a statutory duty of care, supported by risk-assessment requirements, algorithmic transparency, and proportionate safeguards for freedom of expression, offers a more effective and balanced framework. The thesis contributes to existing scholarship by integrating behavioural and regulatory theory with comparative legal analysis and by proposing a model of platform accountability tailored to Aotearoa New Zealand’s legal context and human rights commitments.

year: 2025-12

title: Heartland Wainuiomata: Rurality to suburbs, black singlets to naughty lingerie

authors: Longhurst, Robyn

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: Robyn Longhurst and Carla Wilson enlarge the question of both national identity and gender by investigating the aptly-named Heartland documentary series. They analyse both the series itself and the discourses around it from the book of the series to the press cuttings. In doing so they pinpoint images of nation, masculinity and femininity that are both stable and transgressive and which emerge through the documentaries themselves, their presenter Gamy McCormack and the celebrated Chloe of Wainuiomata.

text: Heartland Wainuiomata: Rurality to suburbs, black singlets to naughty lingerie Robyn Longhurst and Carla Wilson enlarge the question of both national identity and gender by investigating the aptly-named Heartland documentary series. They analyse both the series itself and the discourses around it from the book of the series to the press cuttings. In doing so they pinpoint images of nation, masculinity and femininity that are both stable and transgressive and which emerge through the documentaries themselves, their presenter Gamy McCormack and the celebrated Chloe of Wainuiomata.

year: 2002

title: Māori Goddesses in Literature Part 1: pre 1880 - 1900

authors: Yates-Smith, Aroha

subjects: Atua wāhine

abstract: Many contemporary Māori are familiar with atua wāhine, Māori goddesses, through accounts that have been passed on to them by word of mouth. Few, however, have had an opportunity to consult accounts of atua wāhine that date from the early period of Māori-Pākehā contact. Those who wish to do so may have considerable difficulty in sifting through all of the written materials for the information they seek. For this reason, this paper provides a review of the literature pertaining to atua wāhine from pre-1880 to 1900, together with a commentary on the sources to which reference is made. A review of literature on atua wāhine which appeared after 1900 will appear in the second volume of this journal.

text: Māori Goddesses in Literature Part 1: pre 1880 - 1900 Many contemporary Māori are familiar with atua wāhine, Māori goddesses, through accounts that have been passed on to them by word of mouth. Few, however, have had an opportunity to consult accounts of atua wāhine that date from the early period of Māori-Pākehā contact. Those who wish to do so may have considerable difficulty in sifting through all of the written materials for the information they seek. For this reason, this paper provides a review of the literature pertaining to atua wāhine from pre-1880 to 1900, together with a commentary on the sources to which reference is made. A review of literature on atua wāhine which appeared after 1900 will appear in the second volume of this journal.

year: 2000-10