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: A new experimental model for the investigation of sequential hermaphroditism

authors: Goikoetxea, A

subjects: Science & Technology

abstract: The stunning sexual transformation commonly triggered by age, size or social context in some fishes is one of the best examples of phenotypic plasticity thus far described. To date our understanding of this process is dominated by studies on a handful of subtropical and tropical teleosts, often in wild settings. Here we have established the protogynous New Zealand spotty wrasse, Notolabruscelidotus, as a temperate model for the experimental investigation of sex change. Captive fish were induced to change sex using aromatase inhibition or manipulation of social groups. Complete female-to-male transition occurred over 60 days in both cases and time-series sampling was used to quantify changes in hormone production, gene expression and gonadal cellular anatomy. Early-stage decreases in plasma 17β-estradiol (E2) concentrations or gonadal aromatase (cyp19a1a) expression were not detected in spotty wrasse, despite these being commonly associated with the onset of sex change in subtropical and tropical protogynous (female-to-male) hermaphrodites. In contrast, expression of the masculinising factor amh (anti-Müllerian hormone) increased during early sex change, implying a potential role as a proximate trigger for masculinisation. Collectively, these data provide a foundation for the spotty wrasse as a temperate teleost model to study sex change and cell fate in vertebrates.

text: A new experimental model for the investigation of sequential hermaphroditism The stunning sexual transformation commonly triggered by age, size or social context in some fishes is one of the best examples of phenotypic plasticity thus far described. To date our understanding of this process is dominated by studies on a handful of subtropical and tropical teleosts, often in wild settings. Here we have established the protogynous New Zealand spotty wrasse, Notolabruscelidotus, as a temperate model for the experimental investigation of sex change. Captive fish were induced to change sex using aromatase inhibition or manipulation of social groups. Complete female-to-male transition occurred over 60 days in both cases and time-series sampling was used to quantify changes in hormone production, gene expression and gonadal cellular anatomy. Early-stage decreases in plasma 17β-estradiol (E2) concentrations or gonadal aromatase (cyp19a1a) expression were not detected in spotty wrasse, despite these being commonly associated with the onset of sex change in subtropical and tropical protogynous (female-to-male) hermaphrodites. In contrast, expression of the masculinising factor amh (anti-Müllerian hormone) increased during early sex change, implying a potential role as a proximate trigger for masculinisation. Collectively, these data provide a foundation for the spotty wrasse as a temperate teleost model to study sex change and cell fate in vertebrates.

year: 2021-12-01

title: Te Whariki revisited: How approaches to assessment can make valued learning visible

authors: McLachlan, Claire

abstract: In 2016, Te Whariki: He Whariki Matauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early Childhood Curriculum (Te Whariki) (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2017), New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum was updated for the first time in 20 years. Although the gazetted principles, strands and goals of the curriculum were not part of the update, the remainder of the curriculum was revised to meet the changing social and linguistic context, the revised national curriculum and associated documents, reviews of early childhood practice and relevant theory and research. The updated curriculum has reduced learning outcomes (from 118 to 20) and stronger guidance on the need for both informal and formal approaches to assessment to ensure children’s learning in each strand are assessed. This article reflects on the changes between the 1996 and 2017 version of the curriculum in relation to assessment and the rationale for the changes. Approaches to both ‘in the moment’ and planned assessment are explored and the usefulness of approaches which enable teachers to reflect on ‘discrepant data’ and support children’s learning in each strand are examined.

text: Te Whariki revisited: How approaches to assessment can make valued learning visible In 2016, Te Whariki: He Whariki Matauranga mō ngā Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early Childhood Curriculum (Te Whariki) (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2017), New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum was updated for the first time in 20 years. Although the gazetted principles, strands and goals of the curriculum were not part of the update, the remainder of the curriculum was revised to meet the changing social and linguistic context, the revised national curriculum and associated documents, reviews of early childhood practice and relevant theory and research. The updated curriculum has reduced learning outcomes (from 118 to 20) and stronger guidance on the need for both informal and formal approaches to assessment to ensure children’s learning in each strand are assessed. This article reflects on the changes between the 1996 and 2017 version of the curriculum in relation to assessment and the rationale for the changes. Approaches to both ‘in the moment’ and planned assessment are explored and the usefulness of approaches which enable teachers to reflect on ‘discrepant data’ and support children’s learning in each strand are examined.

year: 2018