New Zealand’s decision follows similar rulings by some of its major
western allies Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty ImagesView image in
fullscreenNew Zealand’s decision follows similar rulings by some of its
major western allies Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty ImagesNew
Zealand This article is more than 1 year oldNew Zealand to ban TikTok from
government devicesThis article is more than 1 year oldMPs were informed of
the decision, which comes after similar moves by western allies, by
parliamentary service on FridayTess McClure in AucklandThu 16 Mar 2023
20.04 EDTLast modified on Thu 23 Mar 2023 21.18 EDTShareNew Zealand’s
parliament will ban TikTok from all parliamentary devices, amid mounting
international security concerns surrounding the app.The country’s MPs were
informed by parliamentary service on Friday that the Chinese-owned
video-sharing app would be blocked from all parliamentary devices at the
end of the month, and were told via email that “the Service has determined
that the risks are not acceptable in the current New Zealand parliament
environment”.“The decision to block the TikTok application has been made
based on our own analysis and following discussion with our colleagues
across government and internationally,” the email reads.New Zealand’s
decision follows similar rulings by some of its major western allies.
Earlier in the week, the UK government announced that TikTok would be
banned, effective immediately, from ministers’ and civil servants’ mobile
phones. The US, Canada, and the European Commission already had a ban in
place.TikTok admits using its app to spy on reporters in effort to track
leaksRead moreTikTok is owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance, and
concerns surrounding its security have centred on whether the Chinese state
could access data recorded by the app’s billion users, or manipulate the
algorithm to push pro-China content. TikTok has denied its data or
algorithms can be accessed or manipulated by the Chinese government, saying
it has not been asked for data, and would refuse any future requests.In
recent months, however, as relationships with Beijing have been strained by
the shooting down of Chinese surveillance balloons, a number of western
countries have introduced bans on the app on parliamentary devices – with
the US going a step further, to consider an outright ban on the app. In
early March, the White House said it supported legislation that would allow
the administration to ban TikTok and other foreign-based technologies
completely if they pose national security threats.The New Zealand ban does
not specifically cover MPs’ personal phones, but those phones must have the
app uninstalled in order to access any parliament applications.A number of
New Zealand MPs use TikTok to post political videos and commentary. Among
the most prolific are Te Pāti Māori leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and
Rawiri Waititi, and Act party leader David Seymour. The Māori party had not
responded to requests for comment by time of publication. A spokesperson
for Act said the party’s TikTok account “is run from a personal phone free
of parliamentary information. We have been taking this precaution for some
time.”Explore more on these topicsNew ZealandTikTokAsia
PacificnewsShareReuse this content

Sam Neill at his home and vineyard in Alexandra, Central Otago, New
Zealand. The actor is receiving a chemotherapy drug he will have to take
for the rest of his life. Photograph: Fiona Goodall/The GuardianView image
in fullscreenSam Neill at his home and vineyard in Alexandra, Central
Otago, New Zealand. The actor is receiving a chemotherapy drug he will have
to take for the rest of his life. Photograph: Fiona Goodall/The GuardianSam
Neill This article is more than 1 year oldSam Neill: Jurassic Park actor
reveals he is being treated for stage-three blood cancerThis article is
more than 1 year oldExclusive: Neill underwent chemotherapy after being
diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma Sam Neill on his new
memoir and living with blood cancer: ‘I’m not afraid to die, but it would
annoy me’ Lucy ClarkFri 17 Mar 2023 14.00 EDTLast modified on Sun 19 Mar
2023 19.50 EDTShareThe actor Sam Neill has revealed that he is being
treated for stage-three blood cancer in a candid memoir to be released on
Tuesday.In an interview with the Guardian about his book, Did I Ever Tell
You This?, the 75-year-old Jurassic Park star discusses his career in film
and television, the nature of celebrity, life on his New Zealand farm, and
mortality, having opened his book with a shock.“The thing is, I’m crook.
Possibly dying,” he writes in chapter one, “I may have to speed this
up.”Neill started writing vignettes from his life as a way to keep busy –
and as a salve – while undergoing treatment last year.“I found myself with
nothing to do,” Neill said in the interview. “And I’m used to working. I
love working. I love going to work. I love being with people every day and
enjoying human company and friendship and all these things. And suddenly I
was deprived of that. And I thought, ‘what am I going to do?’“I never had
any intention to write a book. But as I went on and kept writing, I
realised it was actually sort of giving me a reason to live and I would go
to bed thinking, ‘I’ll write about that tomorrow … that will entertain me.’
And so it was a lifesaver really, because I couldn’t have gone through that
with nothing to do, you know.”In Did I Ever Tell You This? – with its cover
line endorsements from the likes of Meryl Streep, Laura Dern and Stephen
Fry – Neill reveals himself to be an enormously good raconteur with a
collection of stories that take the reader from his first seven years in
Ireland to growing up in New Zealand and the eccentricities of his family
life, through funny coming of age stories and amusing anecdotes from film
sets over the years (co-stars behaving badly, take note).He said his book
is not a cancer memoir, that rather his illness forms a “spiral thread”
throughout the narrative.Neill first experienced swollen glands during
publicity for Jurassic World Dominion in March last year and was soon
diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. He received
chemotherapy, but when that started to fail, he embarked on a new
chemotherapy drug which he will continue to receive monthly for the rest of
his life, although he is now cancer-free.“I can’t pretend that the last
year hasn’t had its dark moments,” he said. “But those dark moments throw
the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every
day and immensely grateful for all my friends. Just pleased to be
alive.”Neill, whose acting career began in the 1970s and is comprised of
over 150 roles from My Brilliant Career to The Piano to Jurassic Park to
Peaky Blinders, is currently in preparation to start filming on the
television adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel Apples Never
Fall, being filmed in Australia and co-starring Annette Bening. Read the
full interview with Sam Neill here Explore more on these topicsSam
NeillHealthCancer researchnewsShareReuse this content