Hate towards New Zealand's trans community has increased 'substantially', according to new data from the Disinformation Project.
Online forums with international influence are filled with increasingly more harmful content, with the tone becoming far more violent than in the past.
The Disinformation Project's Kate Hannah told Breakfast the research comes after members of the trans community expressed concern over a rise in hate following the visit of British anti-trans speaker Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker.
"We heard from trans community members that they had experienced a rise in hate and harm after the visit of Posie Parker," Hannah said.
"We wanted to look at our data and see if that was true, to see the evidence base for that."
It comes after controversial British activist Posie Parker faced a large protest in Auckland. (Source: 1News)
They looked at anti-trans content posted to online forums spanning a month from the middle of March to the middle of April.
The evidence pointed towards a "substantial increase in harm and hate towards trans and non-binary people".
When looking at these platforms, they noticed the tone of what was being put out had become far more hostile and violent.
"So that's an elevated level of violence and an elevated level of harm."
She said the language used would be classed as 'genocidal'.
"That's a language that denies the right of a group of people to exist."
Online forums with international influence are filled with increasingly more harmful content, with the tone becoming far more violent than in the past. (Source: Breakfast)
This kind of content is coming from known neo-Nazi and disinformation groups in New Zealand, but also from overseas too.
She said that a "big wave of neo-Nazi content" was posted to New Zealand platforms before Keen-Minshull visited the country.
"It was at a level we've not seen before," Hannah said - suggesting some of the tools and tactics used show signs of foreign interference.
"There are now channels and ways in which international disinformation actors are manipulating New Zealand communities through the use of a variety of features that are known features of, for example, Russian propaganda techniques," she said.
Hanna said this likely emboldened New Zealand groups to post more content - resulting in "a big uptick in content that's explicitly neo-Nazi or genocidal".
The Disinformation Project's findings are useful to all New Zealanders, Hannah said.
She said communities nationwide should have access to the evidence surrounding hate as it shows their lived experience.
"We need to do work to support trans and non-binary communities to prevent that harm.
"We need to acknowledge that the trans and non-binary community have been harmed and that that harm has risen in the last two months."
Hannah called for those in power to start taking action to support and protect the trans community.
"New Zealanders need to understand, and those in power need to take action around the trends we're seeing.
"New Zealand is becoming a test case for seeing how people can change the minds of a large group towards hating one particular group."
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