Safer online services and media platforms

Our submission focuses on our expertise and concerns related to our work in suicide prevention and postvention, antibullying, and preventing mental health related stigma and discrimination. The MHF believes it is timely and necessary to update Aotearoa’s approach to regulating media and online content, to ensure our approach is applied consistently, better protect users and audiences from harm, and make it easier for the public to protect themselves and access effective reporting and complaints processes. We recommend the new system embed Te Tiriti o Waitangi and representative advisory and decision-making processes, fully define unsafe and harmful content and the communities most affected, ensure there are effective prevention and takedown measures and incentives for compliance, and better educate consumers, creators and platforms on potential harms from content and how to manage them.