I’ll say it up front. I am no fan of Sean Plunket. You probably already know that. The Broadcasting Standards Authority’s sudden move to claim power over his online platform is dangerous, undemocratic, and reeks of bureaucratic overreach.
The BSA was created in 1989 to regulate television and radio. The internet barely existed. This week, out of nowhere, the BSA told Plunket that it now believes it can regulate The Platform, an online-only talk show. That is not “updating” an old law. That is a state agency quietly rewriting the law to suit itself.
No public debate. No new legislation. Just a handful of officials deciding that they now control online speech. That is the textbook definition of regulatory creep.
If the BSA gets away with this, it will not stop at The Platform. It will come for others next. Independent journalists here on Substack. Political commentators on X. YouTubers and podcasters who criticise the government. Anyone who has an audience and a point of view will suddenly find themselves within reach of a state censor that was never meant to touch the internet.
It is absurd that a small panel of bureaucrats can decide who counts as a “broadcaster” and then apply a law written before broadband existed. It is even worse that they are doing it without Parliament’s consent. If that is not an abuse of power, what is?
The BSA’s role should be to uphold broadcasting standards for traditional media, not to hunt down online opinions it finds uncomfortable. This kind of bureaucratic mission creep erodes public trust and threatens the foundations of free expression in New Zealand.
Whether you like Plunket or not is irrelevant. The issue here is who decides what you can say online. If the BSA succeeds in stretching its authority this far, then every independent voice in this country should be worried. Because once a censor claims power, it never gives it back.
What the Broadcasting Standards Authority has done is unilaterally and undemocratically determined it is the ultimate authority on the English language, and in so doing chosen to ignore the internationally recognized Cambridge Dictionary definition of the word broadcasting which is "the activity or business of sending out programmes on television or radio". This is now a rogue, unpredictable and dangerous group of people who very wrongly believe they have jurisdiction over online opinions. Hopefully Sean Plunket will take them to task and whip their asses back into line.
The complaint they’ve pursued on behalf of a man who has emailed me with vitriol, too, because he doesn’t like that I write a blog where I’m unequivocal about slating gender ideology, is ridiculous beyond belief.