Govt ‘listening’ to our chats
$253k for social media reports amid Covid pandemic risks Kiwis’ trust, warns academic
Details of the Government’s quarter-million-dollar spend on a total of 230 “social media listening reports” are both “concerning” and “ethically questionable”, according to a senior lecturer in New Zealand politics at Auckland University.
Lara Greaves said New Zealanders would be “surprised and alarmed” if they came across something they’d posted online in one of these reports.
She said despite terms and conditions on sites like Facebook, “most users think of these sorts of sites as a kind of town square, or [a venue] akin to a pub”.
“I think people don’t think that the Government is going to be in there ‘listening’ to those conversations, and if they find out that it is, that risks fuelling distrust of government, especially if the Government isn’t very transparent and explicit about what it’s doing.”
The Government has spent more than $253,000 on a series of “social media listening reports” that have measured and analysed the contents of Kiwis’ online posts and conversations since early in the Covid-19 pandemic.
The reports — of which the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) has released just 21 to the Herald — began in April 2020 and were discontinued late last month.
Under the OIA, the Herald requested the reports going back to 2020. The full request was refused; DPMC said such a large number of documents would have entailed “substantial collation”.
While DPMC has proactively released research done to better understand Kiwis’ views during the pandemic, including polling, surveys and “pulse checks” on sentiment and behaviour, the social listening work has been withheld, excepting limited release under OIA.
The reports analysed information scraped from publicly visible online posts and comments on sites including Facebook pages, Twitter, Reddit and other public blogs and forums in New Zealand, according to Cheryl Barnes, deputy chief executive of Covid-19 response at DPMC.
The reports tracked sentiment across different topics over time, and measured the volume of such posts and graphed changes in sentiment. In the reports released to the Herald (December 2021 to April 2022), negative sentiment across all categories outstripped positive sentiment.
The topics covered in reports from early 2022 included Covid response, economy, timeframe and team of five million/unite against virus.
In March, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the reports had “given the Government insight and [allowed] officials to be well informed on what the public are having difficulty understanding about any guidelines around behaviours and the response”.
Barnes said the reports “provided valuable insights into the impact of pandemic restrictions, New Zealanders’ acceptance of them and their willingness to carry out Covid19-related health behaviours”.
Act Party leader David Seymour said the reports reveal the extent to which the Government has tested the wind of public sentiment in crafting its Covid response, while telling New Zealanders it’s followed the science.
Total government spend on Unite Against Covid-19 adverts and information topped $87.6m by end of 2021.