Te Kete o Karaitiana Taiuru (Blog)

WARNING: This article should be read by adults and in conjunction to having knowledge of the over representation of Māori victims of online sexual abuse/harassment.

Pornhub, New Zealand’s most viewed pornographic web site released its New Zealand 2022 statistics in November (Stats link page with terms that some may find offensive and likely not safe to open on work and education computers or in front of under 18 year olds) . The previous statistics were released in 2019.

In 2019, the most commonly searched term in New Zealand was ‘maori’. In 2022 ‘maori’ is now fourth most searched word by New Zealanders, with ‘asian’ as third. Compared to “new zealand milf’ at 6th; “new zealand amateur” at 7th; “new zealand milf” at 8th and “nz” at 9th, amongst other top terms.

There are also brake downs by region. Waikato region was more likely to search for “Maori”, Auckland for “Tongan” and Canterbury “Pinay” (a woman of Filipino origin or descent; a Filipina).

Over the past 4 years there has been a major increase in the prevalence and availability of material, links and sites from a Google search and the above mentioned web site that suggest that the interest of Māori content is increasing.

There is also an increasing amount of pornography web sites that are manipulating search engine optimisation (SEO) with Māori words, names of Māori in the public eye and scraped genuine web site text, to attract innocent web searches to visit their web site.

For Māori language speakers, the use of online automated Māori translations in Spam/Phishing emails and face social media profiles are still in their infancy with many speakers sharing screen shots and obvious grammar issues. The risk here is with AI chat bots such as ChatGPT that can learn and translate text to almost academic standards.

The possible risks here for Māori are that there are not enough/any safety resources specifically targeting Māori and Māori language speakers who could face a risk of demand for such resources with Māori and possible exploitation and social pressure by peers to create and share content.

It is probable that Māori are not likely to create such content with a Māori partner due to being easily identified by whānau any by taonga such as moko, etc. But this assumption warrants further research.

There is a dire need for better education of revenge porn, intimate recordings and the risks of such materials within Māori communities and for those resources to be in both English and te Reo Māori with trusted public figures.