Last year post-Aotearoa's first lockdown we chatted to Professor Paul Spoonley, Research Director for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University. We spoke about QAnon, hate speech and misinformation. Listen in to hear his fantastic expertise on these challenging topics.

Caitlin and Georgia speak with Shannan for Ara Taiohi and Tyler from CCS Disability Action about working with rangatahi.

We spoke to Sanjana Hattotuwa, a PhD researcher at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Otago University, about the role of social media platforms both in terms of promoting incendiary content and how some have gone on to protect and strengthen democracy.

You can find Sanjana at http://about.me/sanjanah and on Twitter @sanjanah

The office talked with Yoti, an organisation working in the online age verification world. They have created an app that gives you a safe and convenient way to prove your identity and credentials, online and in person.

https://www.yoti.com/

We asked Dr Kevin Veale from Massey University to come in and talk to us about hate speech and online harassment. At the Classification Office we often look at and classify social media content. The kind of content that comes through our door tends to be violence, sexual exploitation, hate speech, dangerous speech or a combination of all of these elements. Social media platforms make it easy to post hateful content without thinking about the consequences. Remember if you see something you know is out of line report it. If you are experiencing online harassment or abuse check out the below links for support.

Netsafe.org.nz

https://www.netsafe.org.nz/the-kit/resource-centre/

1737

https://1737.org.nz/

And here’s some links about Facebook experimenting on people:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-emotion-study-breached-ethical-guidelines-researchers-say

Pillow Fort

https://www.pillowfort.social/users/sign_in

Awhaa

https://ahwaa.org/?lang=ar

Loot Boxes.

What they are and what the risks are.

The Classification Office  conducts research and produces evidence-based resources to promote media literacy and enable New Zealanders to make informed choices about content they consume. In this podcast Chief Censor David Shanks and our research lead Henry talk about our research exploring young people’s experience and views about porn, and why it’s essential to listen to our rangatahi and tamariki when navigating this area. Check out our website for our porn research, our content analysis of pornhub and watch this space for the release of our next piece of research at the end of March.

Here at the OFLC we try to engage with young people as much as possible, especially when considering decisions that directly affect them. Recently we invited some members of our Youth Advisory Panel to join the classification assessment of the film Good Boys. The comedy features young teenagers swearing copiously, and contains sexual humour. Although the film sounds confronting the sexual content is balanced by the film’s positive messages around consent, friendship and responsibility. In this podcast we talk to Emma and Julian, two members from the panel who joined us during the classification process, and they share their experience and thoughts on the process and decision. We also ask Shiyi, a Classification Advisor here, about their involvement with the decision. Check out our featured classification decision!

In our office we talk to young people a lot about how we classify films and other content like games. We are often asked about loot boxes and how we classify them. It’s tricky because in New Zealand loot boxes don’t constitute gambling. In this podcast we ask Callan, a 14 year old gamer from Onslow College, what are loot boxes are and how young people perceive them. We also ask Shiyi, a Classification Advisor, what the harms of loot boxes are and how they are similar to gambling. Please see our website for more information and further updates about loot boxes in our blogs.