Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa
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sanjanah.bsky.social
Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa
@sanjanah.bsky.social
4.8K followers 420 following 4.4K posts
Studying confluence of influence operations, disinfo, truth decay, information integrity & policies addressing online harms. Many thoughts, sometimes prayers.
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sanjanah.bsky.social
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Image included in a Facebook post by Newstalk ZB noting "Govt rejects all of Climate Change Commission's emissions target recommendations".
December 4, 2025 at 3:40 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Important for those here who aren't on Twitter. Some very important, and interesting questions to consider. | The New Zealand MFAT’s seeking public views on next Strategic Foreign Policy Assessment. Complete the survey at www.surveymonkey.com/r/J7J8P9V #nzpol
Tweet from MFAT noting "We are seeking your views on MFAT’s next Strategic Foreign Policy Assessment. We undertake this assessment every three years to understand our changing international context and what this means for New Zealand. Join the conversation on foreign policy "
December 3, 2025 at 10:29 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
No one supports or pays for the mahi that I do to study NZ's far-right, disinfo, violent extremist landscapes. It's fulfilling to see the rare journalist like Bale take an interest in the research, and clearly lay out threats to social fabric, human security, Māori, and democracy growing at pace.
Hattotuwa says there’s been a spike in hateful rhetoric towards Māori (and experts like Salmond) since Seymour began to campaign on his Treaty Principles Bill before the last election. Debate on the bill and its associated claims of activist judges overturning the will of Parliament triggered many on the right. It gave permission to criticise the “Māorification” of society and recirculate myths that undermine Māori claims to indigeneity and hard-won rights over land and language. Seymour knows that more extreme people find stimulus in his views. He says that is the price of speaking your mind: a tiny percentage of people will go far further and may even act. He says he is fervently against anti-Semitic rhetoric but would not ban it. As to whether the left is as bad as the right, he points to what he sees as racist posts by Te Pāti Māori MP Tākuta Ferris over Labour’s use of “Indians, Asians, Black and Pākehā” in the Tāmaki Makaurau by-election. Seymour also condemned the attack on Peters’ house, saying on X, “If you find yourself vandalising people’s homes, you’ve lost the argument.” He acknowledges there may be what he calls “Christchurch skinhead types” on the right, but maintains the real problem is on the left. Te Pāti Māori, he says, “openly say things that, were they said in reverse, would create absolute outrage”. Hattotuwa fears worse is to come – even though we have seen how things may turn out. It is a bleak summation and what concerns him is the role of politicians in fanning it. Again, he refers to Tarrant, his live video and his manifesto, as a template. “I’m frightened, appalled, angry, saddened. It’s because I have studied that livestream perhaps more than any New Zealander, because I’ve had to. And I’ve read that damn manifesto quite a few times, again because I’ve had to. “What is now being platformed or signalled or telegraphed [by politicians and influencers] boggles the mind.”
December 3, 2025 at 2:19 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Folks in New Zealand should pick up latest copy of Listener magazine. Peter Bale's long form journalism is excellent, and comprehensively captures pulsating far-right landscapes, and what it all risks evolving into given Govt's platforming of, & dalliance with thinly-veiled extremist ideologues.
December 3, 2025 at 2:19 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
"The country's top cop denies police has a culture problem or systemic bias" The jokes write themselves. | Scrutiny Week: Top cops field questions in Parliament www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
December 3, 2025 at 1:49 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Compelling warning by Ireland's Data Protection Commission, originally posted to Instagram. The risks, and threats are progressively, and exponentially worse as generative AI is used against material featuring (your/our) children, incl. in production of CSAM/CSEM. www.instagram.com/reel/DRcD5Fi...
November 27, 2025 at 12:20 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Make this make sense.
November 26, 2025 at 9:29 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
I see this New Zealand citizen is making the news again. www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/new-jd-van...
Tweet by Christopher Hale noting “NEW: Peter Thiel, JD Vance’s top donor and one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful men, recently called Pope Leo XIV a tool of the Antichrist — and directly told the vice president not to listen to him.”
November 25, 2025 at 5:34 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Modern South Asia Workshop macmillan.yale.edu/southasia/mo...
November 23, 2025 at 7:15 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Related infographics.
November 23, 2025 at 2:07 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
The friendship illusion: China’s influence operations, and strategic erasure of India

A study of Facebook posts from 1 October to 21 November 2025

www.linkedin.com/pulse/friend... (on LinkedIn)

sanjanah.wordpress.com/2025/11/23/t... (on WordPress)

#China #InfluenceOperations #India
November 23, 2025 at 2:07 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
In past 48hrs, & in relation to just this news story, a study of 100s of comments on social media confirmed what the former Mayor flagged as ongoing campaigns of harassment, hate, haranguing, and harms. Narrative frames were near exclusively defined by invective, & a frothing derision. #nzpol
November 20, 2025 at 3:35 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Sad, from the perspective of a country losing good people, & esp. wāhine Māori, at pace. Also entirely unsurprising, given the study of hate targeting former Mayor of Wellington. | Tory Whanau says harassment ‘ongoing’ as she outlines reasons for moving to Melbourne www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3608...
November 20, 2025 at 3:35 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
The white brotherhood protecting the white brotherhood with the institutional memory of a goldfish, and the moral clarity of a funhouse mirror.
November 20, 2025 at 1:10 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
How Gemini 3 transforms video into structured, searchable datasets: Implications for human rights, and digital forensics

www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-ge... (LinkedIn)

sanjanah.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/h... (WordPress)

@samgregory.bsky.social
November 19, 2025 at 8:25 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
"Writing or speaking in November, Dame/Prof Anne Salmond, and the Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnes Callamard simply re-affirm what my grounded analysis of social media discourse patterns, and far-right network behaviours, and path-dependencies documented several months prior..."
"What’s clear, and worrying in the study of anti-establishment, anti-authority, MUUVE, white supremacist, and far-right discourse is how Bannon’s ideological framework provides both the intellectual scaffolding, and tactical playbook for the far-right's vaulting growth in New Zealand. His concepts of executive supremacy, administrative state deconstruction, judicial delegitimisation, media warfare, economic populism, conspiratorial thinking, long-war strategy, maximalist positioning, institutional targeting, democratic weaponisation, and systematic dehumanisation appear throughout the content, and related commentary studied in New Zealand’s social media, and web landscapes. To wit, whether through direct influence or convergent evolution, Bannon’s model of sophisticated authoritarianism dressed in democratic rhetoric has found fertile ground in New Zealand’s cultural anxieties, and especially around the debates around the Treaty Principles Bill. His prediction that “we’re resilient, we’re anti-fragile, and we’re tough” whilst opponents “will crater” provides a core template driving extremist entryism, entrenchment, expansion, and escalation. His invocations of strategic patience, understanding the far-right’s rise as a “long war” requiring decades of sustained effort, suggests the threats to New Zealand’s multicultural democracy, and Te Tiriti futures noted in the analysis represent not temporary aberrations but the opening moves in a sustained, strategic, and sophisticated set of campaigns to fundamentally transform socio-political, and constitutional foundations."
November 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Steve Bannon’s fascist rhetoric as blueprint: Transnational extremism’s entrenchment in New Zealand

www.linkedin.com/pulse/steve-... (LinkedIn)

sanjanah.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/s... (WordPress)

#nzpol
November 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
It's remarkable how much quieter hatescape I study is with him behind bars. Even more remarkable is how through voice notes uploaded to social media *while in jail*, Arps issues chilling death threats to Police, judges, lawyers, & others through 'One Policy' trope, which telegraphs death by hanging.
November 14, 2025 at 2:09 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
There's also a podcast with a comprehensive overview of the report's findings, for those who are blind or vision impaired. notebooklm.google.com/notebook/13f... There's also an explainer video. notebooklm.google.com/notebook/13f...
November 12, 2025 at 5:05 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Content already created features a mind map to help navigate key themes, and issues. Can help citizens, journalists, academics, and others drill down quickly to specific aspects the report covers.
November 12, 2025 at 5:05 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Created Google NotebookLM instance on IPCA Report 'Review of Police handling of complaints against Jevon McSkimming'. notebooklm.google.com/notebook/13f... Has a number of resources for New Zealanders to grasp what's in 135-page PDF. Important to render this material accessible to widest audience.
The source is a public report from the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), dated November 11, 2025, detailing a review of how the New Zealand Police handled a series of complaints against then-Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming. The report focuses on the Police's response to allegations of misconduct, including sexual assault, made by a woman referred to as Ms Z following a past relationship. The IPCA finds that senior Police officers repeatedly failed to appropriately investigate Ms Z's serious allegations, instead relying on McSkimming's narrative that she was a "woman scorned" and prioritizing his career, including his application for Police Commissioner. Consequently, Police initiated a criminal investigation and prosecution against Ms Z for harassment, improperly using her complaints as evidence against her and failing to follow established integrity and sexual assault investigation policies. The IPCA also acknowledges that its own responses to the matter in earlier years were inadequate.
November 12, 2025 at 5:05 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Because it is. Ask any Māori.
November 12, 2025 at 2:35 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Pledge here, from anywhere in the world. www.pledgeme.co.nz/proje cts/8521-support-dr-siouxsie-after-she-supported-us #nzpol
November 2, 2025 at 4:25 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Courts don’t know what to do about AI crimes restofworld.org/2025/latin-a... @legallyfeminist.bsky.social
October 31, 2025 at 3:26 AM
sanjanah.bsky.social
Grokipedia's hard coded citation bans: Implications for future of knowledge?

www.linkedin.com/pulse/grokip... (LinkedIn)

sanjanah.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/g... (WordPress)
October 29, 2025 at 4:06 AM