Dr. Cassandra Mudgway

Putting my head up above the newborn trenches for 2 minutes. What's been happening, whānau?

@legallyfeminist.bsky.social

Um this is pretty damn serious given recent cyber attacks and the recent trend of vibe coding.

#nzpol #nzict #nzcyberattacks

The main recommendations Introduce under-16 age restriction for social media. Establish a national regulator for online safety. Ban “nudify” apps and non-consensual deepfake sexual imagery. Explore regulating online platforms’ algorithms and ways to evade restrictions, such as VPNs. Increase platforms’ liability for the content they host, and their platform design. Restrict online advertising of alcohol, tobacco, and gambling — to over-18s. Review laws, consider new offences and penalties associated with online harm. Invest in public campaigns or resources about online safety.

Banning VPNs is a joke policy that could not be taken seriously by anyone who has ever worked remotely for a medium or large organisation or one with a significant international presence

These are not serious people

www.thepost.co.nz/business/360...

I have so many thoughts, but I'm also sleep deprived with a newborn atm folks. This will have to be a July thing. But for summary: Age restriction is dumb if you're not going to do all those other things first. I like a lot of those other things. Banning VPNs I understand but is problematic. #nzpol

ACT is mad about the recommendation to ban nudifier apps, and I think that was my submission, so... sorry? Lol. I think that apps and websites whose primary purpose is to generate sexualised deepfakes without consent should be banned 🤷 #nzpol

AI politicking isn’t coming – it’s already here, and proving hard to regulate Comment: Generative artificial intelligence-enabled campaigning challenges the very assumptions on which NZ’s electoral law is based

Another good article on generally the same theme here:

newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/13/a...

AI is already creeping into election campaigns. NZ’s rules aren’t ready Months out from the next general election, political “AI slop” is spilling over social media feeds. Lessons from overseas could help electoral laws catch up.

Important piece about use of AI during elections, written by two Andrews I trust #nzpol

theconversation.com/ai-is-alread...

Sam Altman tweet: Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network. In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome. AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission. Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement. We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted. We will deploy FDEs to help with our models and to ensure their safety, we will deploy on cloud networks only. We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements. We remain committed to serve all of humanity as best we can. The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place.

My goodness.

What no one seems to be talking about is that there *was* a nuclear accord signed in 2015, one that Iran appeared to be keeping to – and Trump tanked it in his first term, essentially because the US had negotiated and signed it during Obama's presidency.

I haven't seen exactly this cartoon, but I've seen plenty over the last 3 years that the joke is Luxon being feminised in some way. Cool.

To Dr @legallyfeminist.bsky.social's point, study of the comments based on Prof @susanbenesch.bsky.social's dangerous speech framework www.dangerousspeech.org/dangerous-sp... highlights very clearly near impossibility of the former PM to reside in her own country. The risks/threats are unmanageable.

Studied 8,000+ comments/replies on Facebook, & Twitter, ranging from Sky News Australia to NZ MSM, & far-right accounts specifically dealing with Ardern's ostensible move to live in Sydney. Past 48hrs have seen surge of hate/harms anchored to news reports. #nzpol

The Government is currently negotiating an Enhanced Border Security Partnership with the US Department of Homeland Security that would grant US agencies, including ICE, automated, direct access to New Zealanders' biometric data and identity records.

I can't help but think that Jacinda Ardern cannot live in NZ right now because she'd be hounded by media for comment every day and every time she would be subjected to online violence and threats. That's being an overall successful woman politician #nzpol

I love how quickly New Zealand media gloss over that Jacinda Ardern is still the most popular politician according to polls measuring favourability, and she always was as Prime Minister as well which was always contrary to the dominant gallery narrative that she had become a figure of division

Oh, I know this one! We own Air New Zealand because its former private owners made a series of ghastly decisions and registered an operating loss of $1.45 *billion* in 2001 and the Clark govt stepped in, bought an 82% stake and renationalised it so we still had a national carrier.

#nzpol Child poverty data from Stats NZ out today. All political parties except Act agreed to the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018, creating legally mandated targets for child poverty reduction. Right now, we are missing even the looser targets the government has set. A 🧵

Government deciding whether US should get access to New Zealanders' biometric data Officials are in talks with the US about a new travel deal.

I don't think we should be agreeing to anything like this with a country sliding into fascism. Given the enormous human rights implications, where is the Parliamentary oversight? #nzpol

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Human rights protections for transgender Kiwis not a priority – Govt

The Law Commission's recommendations to explicitly bar housing and hiring discrimination against transgender and intersex people have been sidelined.

This is a "papers please" "English is the official language" "eat slop and be grateful" "disappear the unhoused" "women are second class" "don't learn real history" "local FBI office" government and we really cannot afford to be smug about other countries' slide to open fascism, Aotearoa

It’s also doing the rounds at Wellington unis. All those students packed into halls, lectures, and O week events makes for easy spread.
Masks are the best protection.

Rnz headline: watch: mayor goes for swim as Wellington beaches reopen

This is a comedy. #nzpol

Andrew Little, probably #nzpol

It's possible the OPC could have opened an inquiry into X for the Grok situation, which would have been a good test case for deepfakes and the Privacy Act. But alas, as everyone tells me, X isn't that popular in NZ so 🤷

Fair :-)

I mean that only parliament can change the laws or enact the regulations necessary. I'm using "rely" in that context, rather than suggesting trust or confidence.

A good statement from privacy regulators across the world, including our Privacy Commission. If we want wider protections re: deepfake abuse, though, we have to rely on Parliament to sort out the Privacy Act (or other regulations) #nzpol

That wouldn't surprise me, although very much within the OPC's lane. It's a good statement!

'We can't keep telling people just to stay away from the beach' - Wellington mayor

Didn't the mayor in Jaws say this?

Daily ritual at the moment: We wake up, I ask my wife how she is, and she tells me she feels great. We have a sad breakfast because that's another day we aren't having this baby. Lmao. Baby watch Feb 26 🥲