Stuff reports that the government may make online racism and Holocaust denial as part of its crackdown on money-laundering. This would of course be a gross infringement on our freedom of expression, which protects even vile and intellectually dishonest views. But before anyone gets too upset, it might pay to read the fine print:
Justice Minister Simon Power and Police Minister Judith Collins yesterday announced a three-year plan to crack down on international organised crime. One proposal involves the Government signing the Council of Europe Cyber Crime Convention, also known as the Budapest Convention.(Links added)A protocol of the convention requires nations to make "the dissemination of racist and xenophobic material through computer systems" a crime. It also makes denial or justification of the Holocaust and other verified genocides illegal.
While the government wants to sign the Convention (which seems to be a good idea), there's no suggestion either in the story or its source material that they want to sign the Protocol. Which makes the entire story a beat-up. A more accurate headline would be "No plans to ban online racism". But I guess that just wouldn't sell newspapers.
