An influential Chinese-language media outlet in New Zealand warned its users their information could be shared with 'relevant state agencies' if they violated Chinese laws
A popular news site could be exposing New Zealanders to Chinese state surveillance, Newsroom can reveal.
The revelation raises questions about the role of media in alleged foreign interference activity in Aotearoa and has prompted calls for stronger regulation.
Skykiwi.com promotes itself as New Zealand’s “most influential” Chinese-language media outlet, with half a million ‘daily average user visits’ to its multi-platform website. Besides providing news coverage, the site also runs message boards where a variety of topics, including current affairs, are discussed. It claims to have 81,000 daily forum users.
Until July, the terms of service for these forums contained clauses forbidding speech on a range of topics and said that users who violate Chinese laws in their postings could have their information shared with “relevant state agencies,” indicating China’s intelligence apparatus would be able to potentially identify them. It also meant criticism of China’s ruling Communist Party was all but banned.
"According to the laws of China and New Zealand, this community [i.e. Skykiwi] is obliged to immediately stop transmission, save relevant records, report to relevant state agencies, and delete addresses, directories, or shut down servers that contain the content."
China has some of the world’s most restrictive laws on dissent in the digital realm, which can be enforced against its citizens even if they posted content while overseas. This means that Chinese nationals in this country or Chinese New Zealanders who may wish to visit the mainland in the future could be at risk of legal action for criticising the Chinese Communist Party on the pages of a New Zealand website.
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A list of forbidden conduct on the forum, as seen last month, includes “leaking state secrets”, “damaging national honour and interests”, “undermining national unity”, inciting “subversion of state power”, "undermining national policies" and promoting “cults”. Virtually identical wording was discovered on the terms of service for China’s state-backed social media platform WeChat and a list of “prohibited content” outlined by the Chinese Ministry of Culture.
Skykiwi did not respond to emailed queries about its forum’s terms of service when initially approached for this story in July.
But after the questions were sent, Newsroom found that the page wa
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