Those who shared Covid-19 rumour could be liable to the Harmful Digital Communications Act, Netsafe says
Tuesday, 18 August 2020
The man believed to be behind the recent Covid-19 outbreak rumour said he’s willing to accept the consequences of his actions, describing them as “the worst things I’ve ever done”.
The man spoke to journalist Dylan Reeve, who published a transcript of their conversation on Webworm.
Police have said they’re not investigating the incident. However, that doesn’t mean the Harmful Digital Communications Act couldn’t apply, said Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker.
Last week, Health Minister Chris Hipkins was forced to address the rumour, which alleged the source of the outbreak was a young woman who had broken into a managed isolation facility. The rumour gained traction after New Zealand First leader, and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters told Australian media a border security breach preceded the community transmission.
**READ MORE:
* Coronavirus: How to identify dangerous, fake Covid-19 news on social media
* Facebook polices hate speech while law enforcement hesitates
**
Hipkins said a thorough investigation found the rumour to be false. It had caused “considerable distress” for the family at the centre of the cluster, he said.
Reeve said the man, aged in his mid-to-late-20s, posted his theory – cobbled together from snippets of conversations with friends and colleagues – on Reddit. He deleted it within hours, but by then, it had been rewritten and shared on Facebook, where it quickly went viral.
Reeve said he had been in touch with the man on Tuesday morning, after his story had been published, and said he was doing OK. He seemed genuinely sorry for what he had done, saying it was “probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done”, Reeve said.
“He was definitely very emotional about the whole situation,” Reeve said.
“You share these things without thinking about where they could end up. It’s not easy to see the harm a post like that is going to do, ahead of time. What I want people to take away from this is, maybe don’t so freely speculate.”
After he had deleted the post, the man told Reeve he wondered if he could be charged under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. “I would almost rather the police charge me, and I can do the proper reparations,” he told Reeve.
Reeve didn’t believe the man had intended to cause the Auckland family harm. “He didn’t have an agenda, posting his comment. He wasn’t doing it maliciously.
“He was just trying to solve a mystery. But then some people took it, and attached dog whistles.”
Netsafe’s Cocker said the Harmful Digital Communications Act wasn’t constructed with misinformation and fake news in mind. Rather, it was focused on abuse and harassment.
In most cases of misinformation, the target was a group or political party, not an individual.
However, given the rumour was about an individual, it’s possible the Act could be applied, he said.
“It would be a test case. There’s quite a high threshold for the criminal charge. There’s got to be a deliberate campaign to cause harm. But in the civil process, that can still be enacted, even if harm wasn’t intended, but was caused.
“If the individual said they’d felt harmed, it would appear as though the case came within the realms of the Act. But I’d stress, it’d be a test.”
The creator of the post wouldn’t necessarily be the only target. Under the Act, blame lies with everyone who shares the post. “A court would take a dim view of the originator, but also of anyone who takes that content and posts it.”
Since Auckland went into Covid-19 alert level 3 on August 12, Netsafe had noticed a “surge” in Covid-related misinformation. While the organisation could work with social media platforms to remove harmful posts, most of the time, rumours occupied a “middle ground” between fact and falsehood which was harder to take action on.
“We can take reports and try to refer them to agencies that can take action. When it’s a criminal activity, that’s a police matter. When it’s trying to influence the outcome of the election, that’s something Electoral Commission would look at. The Ministry of Health has a particular responsibility, with Covid-19. There are lots of agencies involved. But it’s not like there’s a ‘misinformation agency’, or law.”
While Netsafe did its best, dealing with misinformation was “above and beyond” its remit and resources. “People are reporting to us because they don't know who to report to and I don’t blame them,” Cocker said. “At the moment, it’s a pretty messy environment. We’ll continue to do our best to help New Zealanders report content and take action, but clearly there’s need for a bigger piece of work.”
Tom Barraclough, director of Brainbox Institute, a research centre for emerging technologies and law, has campaigned for centralised oversight of the policy issue of mis- and disinformation.
”If Netsafe is being treated as the go-to agency for online misinformation, then that's a sign that it operates well in that space.” However, they must be adequately funded to deal with “this massive task”, he said.