New Zealand Outlaws Internet Trolling
Depending on which of the laws outlined is used to prosecute, maximum sentences for trolling can range from two to five years in prison.
The country’s Harmful Digital Communications Bill has been approved by parliament last week and is expected to come into effect on Monday.
It means people could be fined or sent to prison for using deliberately harmful, threatening or offensive language.
An agency will also be set up to work with firms like Facebook, Google and Twitter to remove the content.
Tech companies will be expected to ask authors to remove a post before taking it down themselves if it has not been removed within 24 hours.
Critics say the law is too broad and could limit free speech but others think the threshold for prosecutions will be high.
What the bill says…
- Disclose sensitive personal facts about another individual.
- Be threatening, intimidating, or menacing.
- Be grossly offensive to a reasonable person in the position of the affected individual.
- Be indecent or obscene.
- Be used to harass an individual.
- Make a false allegation.
- Contain a matter that is published in breach of confidence.
- Incite or encourage anyone to send a message to an individual for the purpose of causing harm to the individual.
- Incite or encourage another individual to commit suicide.
- Denigrate an individual by reason of his or her color, race, ethnic or national origins, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
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