Update (18/05/22): 

During the protest at Parliament in Wellington, a research centre called The Disinformation Project reviewed social media data daily. 

On March 2, hundreds of protesters were moved off Parliament grounds and nearby streets by police. Almost every third person could be seen filming on their phone and sharing content to social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Zello and Telegram. 

The Disinformation Project discovered 73% of disinformation found on Facebook was created by only 12 people.

"The key accounts have been growing through the pandemic, then during the protest everyone was interested and started tuning in to watch. That includes watching those livestreams that were feeding out disinformation,” The Disinformation Project’s director Kate Hannah told 1News. 

At the start of 2022, Re: met volunteers fighting to take down the spreaders of misinformation in Aotearoa.

Research from Te Pūnaha Matatini has shown since the Covid-19 pandemic began there has been a sharp increase in the “popularity and intensity of Covid-19 specific disinformation and other forms of ‘dangerous speech’ and disinformation, related to far-right ideologies”

As Aotearoa grapples with this misinformation, hundreds of everyday New Zealanders are fighting back. Aimee Milne is a member of F.A.C.T (Fighting Against Conspiracy Theories), and a registered nurse. She has seen her community and patients battle with misinformation, and has joined up to take down those spreading falsehoods.

“It is just lies and misinformation and it is actually killing people. They are killing people. It just made me so angry and I felt so compelled to say something.”

Meet her and the volunteers fighting to take down the spreaders of misinformation in Aotearoa.

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