Dr Karaitiana Taiuru regularly composes blog posts on topics relating to Māori and Artificial Intelligence, Data Sovereignty, Safety, Cultural Appropriation and other related topics. Please subscribe to the RSS feed http://www.taiuru.co.nz/rss to keep up to date.
All posts
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Iwi Citizen or Tribal Member
The terms ‘tribal member’ and ‘hapū member’ are colonial terms with a number of detrimental connotations. Many Indigenous Peoples of the world have suffered the same fate with colonial and derogatory terms to describe them. The definition of the word…
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Dangerous game of DNA testing for Maori
Using scenario and future planning techniques: I will discuss how DNA testing to prove how Māori you are, to identify your ancestry via DNA testing, or the more recent issue of New Zealand school teachers being offered free DNA testing…
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Protecting digital ancestor images
Digitising images of ancestors, taonga and places of cultural value and then sharing the image with whanau and friends on the Internet is common, as it is quick and easy to share with multiple people with just a few clicks…
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Keyboard warrior definition
The definition of a keyboard warrior is often used by non technically literate people as a derogatory term applied to online trolls/cyberbully and people who are online activists using technology to fight and raise concerns for a cause. Warrior is a term…
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2017 govt domain name update
New Zealand Government usage of Māori Language in domains 2017 update A number of Māori language domains are no longer used from 2013, thus heavily reducing the amount of te reo Māori used in government domain names used by the New…
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Ethnographers for digital Maori world?
The digital age has many unknown consequences for Māori culture and history. I question if we need to be our own ethnographers in this rapidly changing digital world? Writing whakapapa or other important information for future generations in the sand at the…
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Māori activism with Domain Name System
For over 20 years up till 2017, Māori fought for the right to be to be fairly represented in the New Zealand Internet Domain Name System and to a lesser extent for recognition within the New Zealand Internet governing body InternetNZ, in…
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Māori Domain Name Cybersquatting: The History, the Cases, and How to Protect Iwi and Māori Names Online
By Dr Karaitiana Taiuru. Consolidated on 10 October 2026 from seven posts first published between 27 July 2008 and 23 January 2017. Original publication dates are kept throughout. Key facts at a glance The problem: since .maori.nz launched on 5…
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Reo Māori email addresses
Research into how many .govt.nz web site contact forms and contact email addresses would accept an email address with a Māori macron (IDN). First published in 2015 here. Contents Methodology. 2 Introduction. 4 Summary. 5 Key findings. 6 Conclusion. 7…
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Historical .iwi.nz criteria
All historical .iwi.nz moderation policies from the original in 1997. The current policy is here. The original moderation policy was casual and was not written or published in in any formal manner until 1997. 1994 Guidelines 1997 2000 2003 2011…
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Cultural analysis of Emotiki app and why it could be offensive
Emotiki contains a number of culturally unsafe issues: the satirical use of a Polynesian deity Tiki, Tame Iti and the use of his face and tā moko without permission (only in release 1, despite their denial to Te Kaea Maori Television, here…
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Digital whakapapa
The nature of the web and digital technologies leads Māori ICT organisations, kupu hou creation, Māori related software, web sites and digital tools to by default, ignore whakapapa in the digital world. I have already spoken widely about tikanga in the…
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Māori ICT Groups analysis and directory
An analysis and directory of Māori ICT groups and individuals designed for easy authorative reference to the myriad of Māori ICT organisations that are often created specifically for one purpose. Introduction The Māori ICT organisations landscape is diverse and un documented which…
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Dictionary of Māori Computer and Social Media terms
Over 374,000 unique headwords with translations from 32 different recorded sources makes this dictionary over six times larger than Ryan Modern Māori Dictionary, with almost 15 times more head words than the Williams dictionary.
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Name change for Massey University – historical racism against Māori
New Zealand is made up of numerous colonial place and street names, as are organisations and brands. Likewise, there are many place, street, educational institutions and government organisations with Māori names. A Massey academic is suggesting a name change for Massey University…
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Social media censorship of traditional moko images
Media reports censorship of moko images on Facebook and Instagram but some misunderstand which organisation can assist. In one article by Māori Television it states that the Ministry of Culture and Heritage have been approached for comment and it states: Te Kaea is…
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Disney releases Polynesian skin kids outfit
Labeled as a Maui Costume for Kids based on the Disney movie Moana. The costumes are made to look like brown skin with Polynesian tattoos. UPDATED Disney pulls Maui costume 22/09/207 There are a number of issues for Polynesian cultures and for Māori special considerations…
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Kauamatua threatened with arrest
Kaumatua Kura Moeahu parliament’s Senior Māori Advisor was threatened with arrest for speaking te reo Māori after a traffic stop in Lower Hutt MāorTV has reported. It is only when the officer noticed Kura’s jacket had a Police related logo on…
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Word list of te reo Moriori
This is not an academic or linguist publication, but a compilation of several historically published sources that contain word lists of Moriori. For full details including sources and an analysis download the publication here. My intention as a researcher was…
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Māori baby names list
Over 1300 Maori Baby names; Christian, Mormon and non religious first names and their equivalent English name. Before using a name in the list, you should also check what other meanings are associated with the name. In the Maori language…
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The Māori ICT Report
Māori access to Internet and ICT report has been released which covers Māori engagement in the digital world, including Internet, mobile usage and employment in the ICT industry identifies pathways for Māori to achieve higher incomes and management opportunities in the…
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Pokemon Go on the Urupa, Marae – Tapu?
Pokémon is a free location-based augmented reality game played on mobile phones which places creatures called Pokemon that can fight each other at randomly selected places including marae, wahi tapu and Urupa. Augmented reality is a live direct or indirect view…
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Ngai Tahu youth going to Silicon Valley
Great to see that ten Ngāi Tahu youth are going to Silicon Valley in October for a five-day science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) boot camp an opportunity was provided by Callaghan Innovation and NZQA which is a part of…
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Warning: Twitter spam targeting Māori
The past 48 hours we has seen a large concentrated Twitter spam attack targeting Māori using popular key words and soft pornography. This is the first time Māori has been targeted in a spam campaign on Twitter and there appears…