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Interesting things are happening around here.
The snowflakes in our local council (The South Waikato District Council) are once again in tears because people have called them names.
Rather than just suck it up or perhaps even take onboard the criticisms leveled at them, it seems that some within the halls of power want to take legal action under the Harmful Digital Communications Act of 2015.
My grandmother always taught me that "sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you" and that's a motto I've lived by for my entire life.
The reality is that sometimes people are mean and there is a place for protections to be in place however, my concern is that there is also plenty of opportunity for this act to be abused.
I have seen with my own eyes the incredibly low threshold that our council places on what it deems to be "attacks" against it or its employees.
When a member of the public tried to raise the previous work history of the CE as a part of his presentation against the proposed long term plan, this was deemed "a personal attack". His microphone was turned off and his right to speak was removed.
I've also seen other councilors complain of "attacks" that were nothing more than reasonable criticism of a job poorly done.
With this in mind, I fear that we may see the situation where threats of action under the Harmful Digital Communications Act are used to suppress free speech on social media in this district -- and that is a worry.
The SWDC has a long-standing reputation to "cover-up" rather than "fix-up" its failings so this strategy of bullying the public into silence could well be, in their eyes, a useful weapon to suppress criticism.
When you consider that the Act provides for fines of up to $50,000 or a prison term of up to two years, it's clear that many people may choose to "play it safe" and avoid criticising council employees or elected members.
This is not how democracy is supposed to work.
By all means, if people are threatened or unreasonably harassed by way of postings to the internet then justice should be meted out for such things but to threaten use of the Act simply to impose a chilling effect on frank and open criticism of those who perform poorly whilst feeding from the public trough is unreasonable.
I shall be observing what follows with great interest and scrutiny.
If/when an attempt is made to abuse the powers of the Act then I shall very publicly highlight that and hold those responsible to account in the court of public opinion.
In the meantime, I shall also be warning members of the community to follow good rules of commonsense. Stick to the facts (although that's not a complete defense under this Act), don't be offensive and always prefix any statement of opinion with the phrase "in my honestly held opinion" so there can be no confusion.
Remembering that the threshold for what the courts may consider "threatening, intimidating, menacing, grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, harassment, a false allegation or inciteful" may be lower than what you might expect and any of these things are grounds for prosecution under the Act.
Most of all however, I would encourage council staff and elected members to take a teaspoon of cement and harden up. Don't be snowflakes.
Carpe Diem folks!
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