Te Kete o Karaitiana Taiuru (Blog)

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Young Māori favor an online pornography filter

An analysis of Māori data from the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) report titled “Research findings of a survey on how and why Young New Zealanders view online pornography” published in December 2018.

The complete report is available from https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5425697/NZYouthandPorn.pdf

A young person is a person aged between 14 and 17.

The report used the following definition of pornography: “explicit images, video, or movies of a person or people having real sex or doing sexual things and you can see their genitals (e.g. penis, vagina).”

Key facts retrieved from the report:

  • In terms of exposure to pornography and frequency of use, the behaviours among Māori, Pasifika, and NZ European youth are quite similar.
  • 73% of young Māori have seen pornography compared to 72% Pasifika, and 69% New Zealand European.
  • Accidental first exposure is more common among Māori and Pasifika youth. This difference may reflect lower confidence and knowledge about keeping safe online generally. Netsafe’s 2018 research with young people found that Pasifika and Māori youth reported lower levels of awareness about online safety than NZ European youth.
  • Māori young people are less likely to have seen romance or affection (63%, vs 80% of non-Māori), however they are just as likely to see this behaviour often. There were no other significant differences in relation to ethnicity.
  • NZ European and Māori youth are more likely to have had a conversation with their parent or caregiver about pornography.
  • Support for some kind of online restriction (such as filters or age verification) is highest among Māori and Pasifika youth.

Summary

Based on NetSafe reports this year regarding online safety and Māori, two key recommendations appear obvious to me:

  1. There is a dire need for specific Māori online safety resources as Māori are more likely to be victims and to seek assistance from whānau.
  2. As young Māori favor an online filter some consideration should be made about this.

DISCLAIMER: This post is the personal opinion of Dr Karaitiana Taiuru and is not reflective of the opinions of any organisation that Dr Karaitiana Taiuru is a member of or associates with, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

One response to “Young Māori favor an online pornography filter”

  1. Danyl Strype Avatar
    Danyl Strype

    > As young Māori favor an online filter some consideration should be made about this.

    This seems very reasonable. There are already a number opt-in systems (apps, plugins/ add-ons, services etc) that can be used to filter net access by a specific device, either by the young person using the device, or by a parent or guardian. Educating young people and their whānau about these systems, how they differ, and how to use them, seems like a good first step. However, since many of these systems are developed to serve specific cultural needs (eg socially conservative Christians in the US), there may be a need to develop filter systems that are specific to the cultural concerns of Māori and Pasifica, both in what they do and don’t filter, and how they work.

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