Chantelle Baker interviewing her father, conservative politician Leighton Baker, in early February as the protest convoy left Christchurch for Wellington. Photo / Supplied
Chantelle Baker interviewing her father, conservative politician Leighton Baker, in early February as the protest convoy left Christchurch for Wellington. Photo / Supplied
ANAYLSIS:
The protest at Parliament accelerated the manipulation and poisoning of the New Zealand think-space.
It is being spread to sucha degree that it has the potential to erode the bedrock on which our civil society sits. It is being believed - or at least not rejected - in a way that signposts a dark future of division.
The report from The Disinformation Project describes a community within New Zealand that exists apart from New Zealand. It is a community that consumes information about our world from sources intent on using misleading and untrue information to drive a wedge between our communities.
It has damaged faith in our democracy and honest engagement in our electoral process. It is highly likely this will be seen in the local body elections this year.
When it comes to next year's general election - which attracts much higher public engagement - expect to experience friction as a growing faction with a discordant perception of reality bangs into those who retain faith in the way we live.
The Disinformation Project's latest report shows we are entering a dangerous space and government needs to act fast.
In the wake of the protesters being cleared from Parliament, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: "One day it will be our job to try and understand how a group of people could succumb to such wild and dangerous mis- and disinformation."
That "one day" should be now and it needs to happen out in the open. Anything not openly disclosed will be misunderstood and misconstrued by those who view the world through a lens of distrust.
There will be claims authorities are interfering with freedom of speech. This isn't about cancel culture - this is about stopping the development of a culture of community corrosion.
There is evidence elements of this manipulation have been under way for years. Our way of life has long been challenged by those who would unseat Western hegemony in favour of a different world order. Chinese and Russian misinformation has been working to undermine efforts to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 in Western countries.
Police officers during their running battle with protesters on the final day of the protest at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
To illustrate just how long running the plan is, scientists at the George Washington University in Washington DC reported in 2018 that the same Russian bots and trolls that interfered in the 2016 election also planted misinformation over vaccine safety.
The intent, they said, was to use vaccination as a "wedge issue" that led to discord in the US. Those trolls hit the jackpot when Covid-19 came along.
False information that serves foreign interests can be seen here on social media - and in real life - by people with little or no realisation they were doing so. Many of the themes pushed here have echoes of misinformation developed or used in other countries and then spread across social media.
Much of this happens across Meta's social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, despite its constant claims of cleaning up its space.
The Disinformation Project report identified the protest movement's Chantelle Baker as a "super spreader" whose broadcasts over Facebook pulled greater engagement than mainstream media on key days in the protest.
The report said Baker - she is not named in the report - generated the most and second-highest engagement among all public Facebook pages in New Zealand from March 1 through to March 3.
Protesters listening to speakers at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
It was Baker who broadcast demonstrably false claims Antifa were behind the fires and violence on March 3 when the protest was broken up. The same false claims were made about the invasion of the Capitol on January 6.
Since the protest, Baker has taken up the cudgel for Putin's Russia over the war in Ukraine. Like others in the protest movement, she offers a counter-narrative to the mass graves and war-mongering reported by mainstream media.
While doing so, she continues to broadcast across Facebook information in conflict with public health advice, accusing politicians of "corruption" while attacking media for not reporting claims that - objectively viewed - don't have factual support.
Baker is just one of a dozen main misinformation producers studied by The Disinformation Project. Those dozen, along with a slew of followers, are eroding faith in the structures that hold our country together.
The problem is growing and it cannot - by any measure - be serving New Zealand's purpose.
