Platform imperialism and disinformation in Aotearoa-New Zealand

Abstract

This article looks at how the emergence of the disinformation field in Aotearoa-New Zealand is indicative of the territorial power of American platforms in policy settings. The country has been a key flashpoint in the debates around platform harm. Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was a champion of technocratic and compassionate leadership in navigating the country through the Christchurch mosque terror attack and COVID-19. At the heart of Ardern's political legacy was The Christchurch Call and adopting a ‘whole of society’ approach to fighting disinformation. In her on-going work she stands as a post-political, moral leader in fostering stakeholder conversations around platform harm, emerging tech and disinformation. This mode of governance is indicative of platform imperialism during the post-2016 Techlash. It is an administrative paradigm that views civil society partnership and big data epistemologies as the means to protect democracies rather than anti-trust measures or domestic platform and media policies. The lead policy entrepreneurs in the field of disinformation research in Aotearoa-New Zealand were The Disinformation Project (TDP). Their role was to furnish local media, government and researchers with a lexicon of “infection” and “subversion”, within which political conflicts are viewed as epiphenomena of disinformation warfare. The field is characterised by a moral, post-political discourse that perpetuates a fantasy of social wholeness and treats platforms as unalterable entities rather than dependent on regulatory carve-outs and arbitrage. The utility of this administrative research is on the wane as the Techlash window of opportunity has closed and with it research centres like TDP.