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03-20-2019, 08:50 AM

New Zealand does have a "First Amendment" -- it is section 14 of their Bill of Rights:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form." (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/p...html#DLM225513)

It is limited by The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act of 1993 (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/p...DLM313407.html).

That act prohibits the distribution of video "if it describes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good." The act outlines the specifics of the prohibition, and notes that certain videos that contain such content must be age restricted, which likely the charged 22 year old did not do. I'm no lawyer, but this certainly seems to be the most apparent violation.

It seems to me to be hard to criticize an attempt to keep such material out of the minds of kids (if that is the nature of the violation). Anyway, if you read the NZ legislation it isn't very unlike that in the US, which limits freedom of speech on the grounds of hate speech, incitement to violence, certain kinds of pornography, etc, etc.

I'm not sure that using 'censorship' to describe this is accurate; that word better describes limiting speech that damages the majority government (think China), or offends some group's moral sense (think Muslim theocracies).

03-20-2019, 08:50 AM	#7
Socratic Monologue	New Zealand does have a "First Amendment" -- it is section 14 of their Bill of Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form." (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/p...html#DLM225513) It is limited by The Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act of 1993 (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/p...DLM313407.html). That act prohibits the distribution of video "if it describes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good." The act outlines the specifics of the prohibition, and notes that certain videos that contain such content must be age restricted, which likely the charged 22 year old did not do. I'm no lawyer, but this certainly seems to be the most apparent violation. It seems to me to be hard to criticize an attempt to keep such material out of the minds of kids (if that is the nature of the violation). Anyway, if you read the NZ legislation it isn't very unlike that in the US, which limits freedom of speech on the grounds of hate speech, incitement to violence, certain kinds of pornography, etc, etc. I'm not sure that using 'censorship' to describe this is accurate; that word better describes limiting speech that damages the majority government (think China), or offends some group's moral sense (think Muslim theocracies).