16 Mar 2022

Parliament protest's online platforms spread violent rhetoric from the start - researcher

From Morning Report, 7:35 am on 16 March 2022

A disinformation and conspiracy researcher says it would have been hard for anyone to predict the Parliamentary protests turning violent. 

New documents show New Zealand's intelligence agencies warned last year that violent protests in response to Covid-19 restrictions were possible.

But researcher Byron C Clark told Morning Report that pinpointing exactly when violence erupted would have been near impossible. 

He says while the physical protest was largely peaceful, its online platforms had spread violent rhetoric from the beginning.