Ardern to lead global push against online terror content

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is to lead the nation’s push for greater safeguards against terrorist and violent content online.

Ardern has been appointed special envoy for the Christchurch Call, a global initiative she set up in the wake of a terrorist attack in the South Island city in 2019, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said on Tuesday in Wellington. She will report directly to Hipkins and has declined to receive any remuneration for the role, which will start on April 17, he said.

“The Christchurch Call is a foreign policy priority for the government and Jacinda Ardern is uniquely placed to keep pushing forward with the goal of eliminating violent extremist content online,” Hipkins said. Such content is a global issue, “but for many in New Zealand, it is also very personal,” he said.

Ardern, who stepped down earlier this year, faced unprecedented crises during her five years as prime minister. The most shocking was an extremist’s shooting rampage at two Christchurch mosques in 2019 — live-streamed to social media — that left 51 people dead. Ardern reformed gun laws immediately, banning the semiautomatic weapons used in the attack. An image of her wearing a headscarf as she mourned with families of the victims went around the world and helped to ease outrage in Muslim nations.

She also joined forces with French President Emmanuel Macron to urge big tech companies to curb the promotion of extremism online — a pledge that become known as the Christchurch Call.

“Jacinda Ardern’s commitment to stopping violent extremist content like we saw that day is key to why she should carry on this work,” Hipkins said. “Her relationships with leaders and technology companies and her drive for change will help increase the pace and ambition of the work we are doing through the Christchurch Call,” he said.

Within months of the mosque shootings, Ardern and Macron met in Paris with representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet, who pledged to help curb the internet’s role in spreading hate speech and incitement to violence.

Hipkins said work was under way in new areas, such as the way algorithms affected radicalisation and how technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) can be exploited by terrorists and violent extremists.

Ardern, 42, is to deliver her valedictory speech to parliament on Wednesday.

She is also joining the board of trustees of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize, which rewards climate action and environmentalism, Kensington Palace said in a statement.