When Jacinda met Donald
NZ’s biggest day at the UN but least attention on fixing the internet
There were four items on Jacinda Ardern’s agenda in New York yesterday that could have made a big news splash on any given day.
But the one that may have the most lasting impact may be the one that garnered the least attention: trying to fix the internet.
Described by Mfat officials as New Zealand’s biggest day at the United Nations, Ardern began with her first in-the-flesh meeting with Boris Johnson.
A potentially lucrative freetrade deal with the United Kingdom and preserving a young Kiwi’s OE would be a big deal, but, with the omnishambles that is Brexit, there is no telling what might happen or when.
Then there was her address at the UN Climate Summit at the personal invitation of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, with a chance to cement her leadership on what she has called her generation’s nuclear-free moment.
But with the stalling of the Zero Carbon bill and no firm date yet to include agriculture in the emissions trading system, environmentalists across New Zealand say the rhetoric doesn’t match the action.
Ardern’s first formal meeting with Donald Trump was her third major encounter of the day, and certainly garnered the most attention.
But any sign of a free-trade deal would be years away and, if it did eventuate, Winston Peters could argue that it would be more his legacy than hers.
Also of note was that Trump asked Ardern, unprompted, about how she changed the gun laws in New Zealand immediately after the March 15 terrorist attack.
If Ardern was the catalyst for Trump to green-light gun law reform in the US, it would be hailed as a something akin to a miracle, although she herself seemed to think that was far from reality, characterising his questions as no sign of anything in particular.
Equally fascinating was Ardern’s continued diplomatic tightrope that she walks with regard to Trump; she is courteous towards him in the interests of the country, but she may upset parts of her fanbase if she said anything complimentary about him.
Ardern was careful to be full of admiration for Trump’s love and knowledge of New Zealand — and not about him personally.
She also had a subtle dig at him when asked if Trump might visit New Zealand at the end of the year, saying there were elections coming and the US president — whoever it might be — would come to New Zealand for Apec in 2021.
And asked about Trump’s “thumbs up” in their photo together and whether she would give him one, she said it was a gesture she did not tend to do in photos.
The final item on her agenda was the Christchurch Call which, while sounding mundane, was a quiet triumph for Ardern.
She had pushed for the call in the immediate aftermath of the March 15 atrocity to stir social media platforms and governments into greater and collaborative action.
The goal was a lofty one: to prevent online terrorist or violent extremist content from
being uploaded and, if that failed, from going viral.
There was broad agreement from tech companies, government officials and civil society that progress since the call’s signing in May is real and tangible.
They agreed the crisisresponse framework to stop the spread of terrorist content — ready to be deployed — would have made a meaningful difference if it had been in place on March 15.
These scenarios are such that an hour lost could translate to 100,000 uploads.
And new efforts to target extremism are almost as if tech companies are responding directly to Ardern’s “all profit, no responsibility” comments she made in March.
Tech companies are notoriously slow to act and, with scandals on privacy and around Cambridge Analytica, they have hardly built a reputation around social responsibility. The fact the call is voluntary means that Ardern must put a lot of faith in them — and pressure on them — to do the right thing.
There has been evidence of change since March 15; Facebook has made a number of changes not just around livestreaming, but also in trying to redirect users away from hate and towards support.
It remains to be seen whether the changes are simply cosmetic, and it’s hardly realistic to think that there will never be another March 15 that uses social media as an amplifier. But the call could prevent such events from happening again, or slow the spread of such footage.