From Watts Up With That?
Essay by Eric Worrall
Former NZ PM Jacinda Ardern has formally joined Harvard’s global push to censor online speech, because publicly questioning climate alarmism is related to mass shooting atrocities.
Former New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern joins Berkman Klein Center as Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow
The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is thrilled to announce Jacinda Ardern as its first Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow. Ardern served as the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand from 2017 to 2023. The fellowship begins this fall.
Ardern is known globally as a dedicated and effective leader in pursuing greater online platform accountability and content moderation standards through the Christchurch Call, a community of over 120 governments, online service providers, and civil society organizations sparked by the livestreaming of deadly mass killings by a white supremacist at two mosques in Christchurch in March 2019, which killed 51 people.
“I am delighted to be formally working with the Berkman Klein Center,” said Prime Minister Ardern. “The Center has been an incredibly important partner as we’ve developed the Christchurch Call to action on addressing violent extremism online. Emerging technologies such as AI present huge opportunities to address online harms, but also challenges. My time with BKC will allow me to collaborate with the excellent team as we advance the work of the Christchurch Call.”
…Read more: https://cyber.harvard.edu/story/2023-04/jacinda-ardern-joins-berkman-klein-center
The Christchurch mosque shootings which inspired this global censorship push occurred in gun controlled New Zealand. Despite New Zealand’s strict gun laws, a maniac somehow got his hands on a semi-automatic shotgun and lots of ammo. The 51 murdered Muslims were unable to defend themselves against the heavily armed maniac, because New Zealand’s strict gun laws forbid law abiding people from bearing arms.
In the wake of this horrible atrocity, New Zealand’s then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responded by doubling down on New Zealand’s gun control failure, and even more bizarrely, by attempting to link questioning climate predictions to mass shooting atrocities.
If you think I’m exaggerating, read Jacinda’s words for yourself;
…
On March 15, 2019, New Zealand experienced a horrific terrorist attack on its Muslim community.
More than 50 people were killed as they prayed. The attack was live-streamed on a popular social media platform in an effort to gain notoriety, and to spread hate.
At that time, the ability to thwart those goals was limited. And the chances of Government alone being able to resolve this gap was equally challenging.
That’s why, alongside President Emmanuel Macron, we created the Christchurch Call to Action.
The Call community has worked together to address terrorism and violent extremist content online. As this important work progresses, we have demonstrated the impact we can have by working together collaboratively.
…
As leaders, we are rightly concerned that even those most light-touch approaches to disinformation could be misinterpreted as being hostile to the values of free speech we value so highly.
But while I cannot tell you today what the answer is to this challenge, I can say with complete certainty that we cannot ignore it. To do so poses an equal threat to the norms we all value.
After all, how do you successfully end a war if people are led to believe the reason for its existence is not only legal but noble? How do you tackle climate change if people do not believe it exists? How do you ensure the human rights of others are upheld, when they are subjected to hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology?
The weapons may be different but the goals of those who perpetuate them are often the same. To cause chaos and reduce the ability of others to defend themselves. To disband communities. To collapse the collective strength of countries who work together.
But we have an opportunity here to ensure that these particular weapons of war do not become an established part of warfare.
I can’t help thinking that allowing law abiding people to bear arms and defend themselves when the next maniac opens fire might be a better way to reduce mass shooting casualties, than silencing critics of wind turbines. Some US mass shooters have been stopped in their tracks by courageous, law abiding people who shot back. But Jacinda Ardern and her fellow travellers seem firmly convinced that more censorship, including censoring climate skeptics, is the best way to protect people from bullets.
Maybe someone from New Zealand can explain.
Note I am not in any way criticising the Christchurch police mobilisation in response to the atrocity. The Christchurch police reacted as quickly as anyone could reasonably expect, and stopped the maniac from reaching the third mosque on his hit list, by courageously ramming his automobile. The maniac was apprehended just 18 minutes after the first emergency call. But 18 minutes is a long time, when a heavily armed madman is pumping shotgun blasts into large groups of unarmed people.
You must be logged in to post a comment.