New Zealand to attend G7 meeting on cyber collaboration

Faafoi will accompany Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern while she is in Paris championing the Christchurch Call, with the aim of adopting concrete commitments by governments and tech companies to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online, while protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms and maintaining a free, open and secure Internet, a government statement said on Friday.

"New Zealand is committed to addressing cyber security threats and building cyber security capacity and resilience. While we are geographically isolated, this offers no protection in the cyber world," Faafoi said.

The minister will be meeting with counterparts in Britain and Ireland to discuss global cyber security issues as "no one country can tackle these alone," he said.
Ardern announced late April that New Zealand and France will bring together countries and tech companies in order to prevent social media being used as platforms to promote terrorism.

It follows calls for social media companies to take responsibility to regulate violent, extremist content on its platforms following the March 15 terrorist attacks in Christchurch, which were livestreamed on Facebook.

A meeting co-chaired by Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron will take place on May 15 in Paris.