In brief:
- NZ Herald removes all comments from their Prosecution Guidelines story concerning different rights for Māori.
- Most comments opposed race-based prosecution guidelines.
- No explanation has yet been given by the NZ Herald.
Online comments deleted after backlash over race-based legal guidelines
The NZ Herald took the unusual step of deleting comments entirely on a story, leaving subscribers questioning the publication’s stance on open debate after the article sparked an overwhelming backlash in the comments section against race-based legal policies.
At 5 am on Thursday, October 17, NZ Herald’s Audrey Young published this piece on the controversial new Prosecution Guidelines, which stated that different considerations should be given to different ethnicities when it comes to crime.
Comments were opened at 7.30 AM to their Premium customers.
The comments mostly expressed concern, frustration, and outrage that a race-based legal policy has come from a senior public servant who is supposed to be non-partisan and delivering on the Coalition’s “Need not race” circular from cabinet – one of the strongest messages a government can send to the public service at large.
However, around 9.30 am, after 70+ comments and growing engagement, a message appeared saying, “Comments have now closed on this story.”
A few minutes later, the comments were removed entirely. They were not reinstated publicly. However, they remained visible to users in their personal accounts. This suggests that the NZ Herald may have wanted to prevent public visibility of the backlash without completely erasing the users’ individual experiences of engagement.
One frustrated subscriber took screenshots, which have been shared below as evidence of the comments that were deleted.
The “right-wing commentators” comment was the second most liked at the time of cancellation. (The final comment on inflation has been left in for contrast to illustrate how comments typically work and remain public.)
It is rare for the NZ Herald to allow comments on stories concerning racial policy or social division, so this was an equally rare opportunity for those Premium customers to have their say on such an issue.
If individual comments were deemed offensive, they would have been removed by moderators in line with community guidelines—but why delete the entire comments section? Ironically, that might stifle the immediate discussion in the Herald but promote a broader discussion elsewhere.
Another long-running frustration of users is why some stories are allowed 500 comments, like this female leadership story by Matthew Hooton, while others have comments shut down after less than 20 comments, often by the same author, like this NZ First annual conference story. What makes this more notable is that the top comment on the NZ First story received three times more likes than the top comment on the female leadership story (356 vs 124 at the time of writing).
Not the first time
This is not the first time the Herald has been called out for gaming the narrative by manipulating how the comments section of controversial stories is handled.
Robert MacCulloch has previously criticised the publication for its negative handling of a front-page headline about taxpayer funding for Christopher Luxon’s te reo Māori classes.
He alleged that the Herald manipulated the comment section to suppress supportive views of Luxon and the new government. He accused the paper of removing comments and relaunching the article, without the option to comment, to avoid public backlash against the media’s stance.
Further questions about the Herald’s comments policy include user frustrations around the high percentage of comments that are rejected by moderators, even when those comments don’t break their stated Community Guidelines.
Is this an example of comment cancel culture, or just a one-off story that may yet have a fair explanation?
The NZ Herald has not yet responded to formal complaints on the matter.
