As organisations like Islamic State continue to rise in prominence, the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) is increasingly required to classify content relating to terrorism.
In the first case of its kind in New Zealand, Imran Patel was jailed two weeks ago after being convicted of distributing videos of beheadings, and according to OFLC Deputy Chief Censor Jared Mullen, it won't be the last.
"I think it would be fair to say the Office does not expect that to be the last prosecution of its type," Mr Mullen said.
For content to be deemed objectionable and therefore banned, it must be highly offensive – not only sympathetic to hostile views but provoking criminal acts, he said.
"Normal fundamentalist religious text or speech of any religion wouldn't necessarily qualify. Criticism of any government or societies or even classes of people wouldn't necessarily qualify for an objectionable classification – it has to be a lot stronger than that.
"It really needs to cross the threshold into encouraging criminal acts and terrorist acts of violence – that's the test."
With the internet being a constantly expanding entity it is hard to imagine that it could possibly be policed with any effectiveness, but Mr Mullen said government agencies in New Zealand and overseas work together and are very good at detection.
"They've got wide powers of seizure and in practice they’re actually catching more and more of that content.
"It'd be a very unwise person indeed that thought they could get away with trafficking child abuse images, or [that] promotion of other acts including terrorism wouldn’t be picked up and dealt with."
Mr Mullen said the definition of what is deemed a publication is intentionally very broad, so that a wide range of electronically stored content can be caught.
"[Watchdogs] may have copies of materials shared in chat rooms, enforcement agencies may submit that to us. They may have a clone of material on either people's clouds or hard drives and we might get copies of that material to look at."
He also said most internet service providers in New Zealand have voluntary filters operated by referrals that detect offensive and illegal content. Under those systems content can be blocked and people attempting to access it given a warning about why it was blocked.
Newshub.
