Last year, Kiri Allan was forced to withdraw the government’s latest ‘hate speech’ proposals, only a year or so after Kris Faafoi was forced to shelve similar plans.

We have no doubt that you were as dismayed as we were by these developments (or lack of developments).

After all, how will we stop authoritarianism without regulating citizens’ speech?

That’s why we welcome the Department of Internal Affairs’ new plan to regulate online content.

The plan is to regulate any platform with an annual audience of more than 100,000 or 25,000 subscribers. That makes sense – 25,000 is almost the population of Taupo, so any group that big could present a real threat to civilization. And how will the government be able to stop authoritarianism without keeping a watch on private groups?

The plan mainly seems to have social media platforms in mind, but email lists don’t seem to be excluded, which is obviously a relief. After all, how will the government be able to stop authoritarianism without keeping a watch on people’s mail?

The idea is to have platforms draw up a new code of conduct with help from the government, and then to have the DIA issue fines to platforms that don’t comply. All of which makes sense, because how are we going to stop authoritarianism without penalties for speech?

Especially as these proposals are carefully designed to only catch the most flagrantly Fascist content, like adult content in video games. As history has shown, keeping a lid on titillating video game characters is crucial to stopping authoritarianism.

The new regulatory system will of course also be designed to ‘achieve outcomes that reflect Māori perspectives, needs, and aspirations.’ Government agencies telling ordinary people what they really need is another thing that’s crucial to stopping authoritarianism.

Note, finally, that as things stand there’s no provision for any input from Parliament or elected representatives on the codes of conduct that are going to be used to regulate content. Which is obviously a good thing. Parliaments and elected representatives have a well-known tendency to get in the way of the fight to stop authoritarianism.

The last thing anyone would want, of course – especially our public-spirited civil servants – is to allow people to make their own decisions about what they see and say online. We’d might as well just welcome authoritarianism in with open arms.