Social media has a 'fascinating' impact on political engagement, University of Auckland professor says

A media and screen lecturer with a background in political theory, media theory and the philosophy of technology says "direct engagement" with and education about proposed government policies online has been "fascinating".

Submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill have smashed previous records with initial indications the committee received 300,000 submissions, half of which were received on the last day.

A discussion document about the Regulatory Standards Bill received almost 23,000 submissions, around 80 percent of them in the final four days of the consultation period.

Social media videos had been used throughout the consultation process to encourage viewers to make submissions.

Professor Neal Curtis from the University of Auckland said he had seen regular reminders about what the Bills are about, ways in which people could respond and reminders to make submissions. He also pointed to communal submission parties which are "lovely things that I hope will continue into the future."

It had been fascinating to watch people "directly engaging with these proposed changes" and the "education taking place" on social media, he said.

"Because there's lots of people who would have concerns about this stuff but aren't aware of the detail."

It encouraged community engagement, and individuals getting involved politically, he said.

In particular, Curtis had seen a lot of the engagement coming out of Māori communities. Throughout history Māori have had to speak out and protest, he said.

"They're showing us how to do things. They're offering us a lead."

Koekoeā is a cross-platform account that was created after Hīkoi mō te Tiriti arrived at Parliament in November. It posts across Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and works with other groups like Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga.

It was created by rangatahi, and the bio explains, it is a Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti group "bringing accessible information and workshops for Select Committee Submissions" on the Treaty Principles Bill.

Its first post from 22 November on Instagram is a video of Tina Ngata - an indigenous rights advocate from Ngāti Porou - explaining what the page will do.

"Kia ora whānau. Welcome to the Koekoeā page. This is where we will be posting helpful information and guides for you to complete your submission for the Treaty Principles Bill. We will also be hosting weekly virtual workshops to support you drafting your submission as well."

Ngata said they used social media because "that's where our people are in the first instance." They wanted to make sure there was "good information out there for our whānau, where they're at on those platforms."

She also acknowledged that to a degree, it was about "numbers".

"The simplest way to be able to communicate a message across to broad numbers and get many people exposed to that message these days is through social media."

Ngata helped with content and live workshops and said it was about supporting people to be active in the submissions process and realise that it's "actually not that scary".

Most of the people they engaged with said this was the first submission they'd ever written, Ngata said.

Along with other accounts, both individuals and organisations, posts and videos, and live sessions were held right until the final submission date, which saw technical issues on the Parliament website and led to an extension of time for people to provide feedback.

A range of these accounts then encouraged people to turn their attention to the Regulatory Standards Bill, which received an exponential amount of its total submissions in the final few days.

These two Bills were "probably two of the most constitutionally audacious pieces of legislation in our lifetime", Ngata said.

They would be difficult to undo under a new government, and the process of undoing them could subject Māori to more "racialised hostility", she said.

"In terms of the scale and scope of the impacts and the potential to entrench and embed colonial power, they're laws that frame how we do law, and so that is going to require us to be aware of how systems of power work."

She encouraged people to "get engaged" and to get good information from reliable sources.

Media and communications could inform the will of the people, Ngata said.

Curtis described social media "in its best form" as having the potential for "direct democracy rather than representative democracy."

"So, rather than voting for somebody and [then] having somebody do or not do what you ask them to do, social media, because everybody can express their views and make statements on various issues, is much more related to the ideal of direct democracy, which is people actually directly engaging with stuff."

He linked this to the submission process, because people were not asking a representative speak for them. "you're being asked to directly engage with law-making," he said.

"I think social media has always had this ideal, utopian aspect."

Since the beginnings of the internet and the World Wide Web, there had always been "hopes, dreams, fantasies" about how technology could contribute to the development of direct democracy, he said.

"I think we're seeing what social media can potentially do in the political realm in a positive way, rather than in the very, very negative ways that it has so far operated."

He described how people would see this information on their social media feeds all the time, and it would encourage them to respond and it make them feel "hopeful" and like they "can do something."

"At a time when people are feeling perhaps a little hopeless or dispirited because of the direction the world has taken, I think this is, you know, it's good vibes, as they say."

He said any engagement by the public was a "fantastically positive thing", especially because "it seems to me that one of the major objectives of the political class is to disenfranchise people, to produce a sort of apathy in which people just sort of give in."

He pointed out that it showed lots of people do wanted to engage, but may not have had the time or the confidence to make a submission.

"Once the reminders come round people hop on and do it right."

In regards to the Treaty Principles Bill, Curtis said people acknowledged it was a "significant" and "radical transformation".

"I think that's motivating people.

"The temperature's suddenly been turned up really, really sharply, and people have gone, oh, my God, this is serious, right? So people are beginning to engage and speak about it and act on it and do something."

Curtis warned about the dangers of "free speech," saying it was all connected.

"Speech is always rooted in a situation and a context. It's made by a person that's alive, that lives in a particular place and time and so if the environment in which we're trying to speak is full of hate, full of violence, full of racism, then a lot of people are not even going to attempt to speak."

He described people making "one attempt" and getting "shouted down on social media" then deleting their accounts. In order to protect people's capacity to speak, there needs to be regulation, he said.

"This government is going down and accelerating that sort of free speech libertarian absolutist position that's come from the alt right in the States."

Absolutist notions of free speech were "completely counter to democracy", he said.

He said he thought communities that had built up on social media around these specific causes are providing spaces in which people feel protected, and a sense they've got agency and are able to do something.

"Even if it's just reposting something about a reminder to do a submission, not even doing a submission, even if it's just reposting to try and encourage other people to do maybe people see enough of it and feel that they can actually do it."

Curtis was mindful there could be inaccurate information online, and there was a danger the "information environment we've built" was dominated by "so much noise and information".

There would be disinformation, misinformation, and political propaganda going around, but that was the environment people had to work in, he said.

"People might be making submissions based on partial and partisan knowledge, but I come back to the fact that I'd rather have people engaging than not engaging when apathy is such a dangerous thing."

It was a good thing that people are concerned enough to engage with websites that are "not empowering", he said.

"The way they're presented, the language that's used is often disabling in many ways. So for people to still go through that and make a submission, I think, is fantastic."

Minister responds

David Seymour is in charge of the Treaty Principles Bill and while he was "thrilled" at the amount of attention, he had "mixed views" about the use of social media.

"I think some people have tried to make it so easy to submit to select committee that it's a de facto referendum."

He was supportive of a referendum - the Bill called for that, and if passed into law would trigger one. But he thought it was "really critical we don't lose sight of the intention of the select committee process."

That was where "members of the public can bring useful information to the attention of members of parliament, rather than make an expression of sheer numbers", he said.

In terms of the level of engagement, he said even those who opposed his Bill seem to have accepted the "basic premise that what the treaty means to us in the future should be decided democratically, rather than by the courts or the Waitangi Tribunal, the public service, or any other small group of New Zealanders."

He said the "quality of the submissions" must be considered. He pointed to examples of political parties, organisations or businesses collecting email submissions and making submissions on behalf of others.

"I don't think that is engagement, and that will have inflated the numbers somewhat, but nonetheless, you know, whichever way you paint it, a very significant number of people have made genuine and sincere submissions. And that, I think, is the triumph of the bill so far."

On the use of social media as a platform for democratic engagement, Seymour said it has become much easier to convey information then ever before, "any person can become a broadcaster."

"I've seen individuals who may not have much money, they may not be able to invest any money, but so long as they can sign up and register, they can share their views. That is a real transformation of media around the world."

Seymour was insistent on the need to have a quality discussion about the Bill, "and you don't get that from sheer numbers."

On the regulation of speech, Seymour said he suspected that was "not realistic."

"I suspect in reality, just as you see Meta stepping back from fact checking, the only way to get to truth is an open contest of ideas. Anyone who promises they can give you an open contest of ideas without anyone offending you along the way is promising an impossibility."

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