A fabricated Newshub headline alleging Jacinda Ardern filed to have AM co-host Ryan Bridge banned from media platforms appears to have come from a "package of disinformation", a sociologist says.
The bogus headline, which emerged last week and was interpreted as genuine by some social media users, reads: 'PM Jacinda Ardern has filled [sic] to have Ryan Bridge banned from all major platforms, and rejects any further interviews with the reporter.' The headline had spelling and style errors.
Newshub and AM are owned by Discovery ANZ, a private company that the Government has no authority over.
Sociologist Paul Spoonley addressed the headline during an interview with AM on Wednesday and explained why Bridge and the Prime Minister might have been targeted.
"Some of it does come out of the United States - and they've been doing it a bit longer than we have," he said. "I think what happens is it gets translated to New Zealand; the distrust and vitriol directed at our politicians… really there are no politicians who are exempt from this.
"What it does is it gets personalised so when you look at the online hate and disinformation and conspiracy theories, the vast majority of it is directed at our Prime Minister and so they do that with other institutions as well, and that's why Ryan got targeted.
"Someone, somewhere… has put 2 and 2 together to make 5 or 6 or 10 and then put together a rather interesting package of disinformation," Spoonley said.
He said, despite the spelling errors, the headline would have looked genuine to many people.
"It looked as though it was real and that, somehow, it had come from Newshub," Spoonley said. "What they're doing is targeting two of the institutions they don't like which is politics and the media, and then they've used that dislike - that distrust of the Prime Minister - to have a go at you guys.
"It's a way of targeting two of the institutions that they are really antagonistic towards," Spoonley told AM host Melissa Chan-Green.
Bridge himself addressed the headline during Monday's edition of AM.
"I literally had hundreds of people message me - it's a fake headline," he said.
"It's obviously not true… she has not had me banned from this platform because here I am."
Ardern also rejected the fake headline, calling it "rubbish".
