CYF to Gag Name-and-Shame Site
Lindsay Mitchell is reporting (UPDATE: So is NZPA and the NZ Herald) that Ministry of Social Development CEO Peter Hughes has “instructed lawyers to work 24/7 doing whatever they have to, to shut down the CYFS Watch blogsite.”
CYFSWatch is a controversial new blog that is attempting to hold Child, Youth and Family staff accountable for their allegedly destructive actions by publishing ‘name-and-shame’ articles about the individuals involved in various cases.
CYF is likely to be under pressure from the PSA, its staff’s union, to do something about the site (UPDATE: PSA press release), which is threatening to publish the personal details of CYF staff including photographs and home addresses.
If the allegations made on the site are true then the authors have every right to publish them, however “robust” you might find their methods. If not, the answer is not for an arm of the government to shut down the site but to sue the authors for libel although, given their anonymity, that could prove difficult.
It will be interesting to see what CYF does here and, if it comes down to it, whether Google (Blogger’s owner) will do the government’s dirty work and censor the site. Given the nature of the Internet, any information that is censored will no doubt just pop up somewhere else.
UPDATE: Around the blogs:
Not PC: When bureaucrats attack
Kiwiblog: The CYFSWATCH Blog
No Right Turn: No freedom to criticise CYFS
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:35 pm
the direct link is here;
http://cyfswatch.blogspot.com/
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
TV1 just went ape on the site making a lot of claims and generally painting a picture of psycotic loons giving out peoples personal details and terrified staff being put under police protection. (Protection many of the victims of the dept have never received.)
So I’ve just spent an hour going through the site and yes I was horrified. Not at the claims of TV1 being found to be real but the depth and breadth of failure by this government department and the staff immunity to being held accountable.
I did not see any personal details other than names.
The litany of families being destroyed however is certainly cause for for alarm.
Especially if you’re the one responsible for this shambles.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
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January 26th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
[…] As an indicator of how much interest there is in this now, traffic to this blog has more than doubled since I posted on the topic on Wednesday lunchtime. The top ten search queries landing here at the moment are: 1. cyfswatch 2. cyfs blog 3. cyf blog 4. cyf name and shame 5. cyfs watch 6. cyfswatch blog 7. name and shame 8. cyf 9. cyf watch 10. cyfswatch […]
January 28th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
What a pity there aint a blogsite for people who would LOVE to EXPOSE Narcotic Police CORRUPTION, and name the Lawyers, and Crown Prosecutors from Meredith Connell who support it.
View my blog http://monstrouscrown.blogspot.com
http://nz-injustice.blogspot.com
January 31st, 2007 at 10:31 am
[…] The CYFSWatch affair and the Ministry of Social Development’s flailing around trying to decide how to deal with the threat of people expressing themselves with a new technology (and the Prime Minister’s frothing last year about “right-wing bloggers”) brings to mind an earlier time when authorities grappled with a new technology in a similarly ham-fisted manner. […]
April 20th, 2007 at 2:37 am
this reply is for anyone “in doubt” of the cyfswatch website, and is particularly aimed at new zealands current government.
hang your heads in shame.
this is new zealand. we live in new zealand. our kids are our future and we are destroying them if we allow this to continue.
what you read here has happened to REAL people, real families - with real emotions.
anyone would think helen clark and all of those under her, who value their positions so dearly, don’t want todays youth to grow to be intelligent people who could quite possibly push them off their little thrones in the very near future.
they have done quite enough damage and it’s evident in the rising statistics of crime and abuse. go figure. did it all come about by being kind little samaritans? no. it came from tearing families apart and all the bull from “decent” departments.
i can honestly say, from my own experience, these kids the cyfs department tear away from their families, that just need a helping hand to stand on their feet are being placed in foster homes which are all-in-all more damning than anywhere else imaginable. they are NOT the perfect made havens that cyfs claim them to be!
OPEN YOUR EYES NEW ZEALAND!
we are destroying ourselves, and at the end of the day will have no one else to blame.
posted by an ex-foster kid (from age 5-16), scarred for life, and now a mother who fought against cyfs and won 3 times (aged 18-22). - now try and tell me i don’t know what i’m talking about!
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June 21st, 2007 at 8:46 pm
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July 9th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Hello
I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but shrug. I just don’t have anything to say recently.
G’night
May 21st, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn?t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:00 am
O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:09 am
With extensive history in which I negotiated some 13yrs ago today has bit me so hard I need HELP/Advice? Recently I was threatned by CYFS that if I allowed my 17yr old son to stay with me my children 3 and 5 would be up-lifted. This I could understand if my 17yr old was a risk to my children but as I believe in my heart that my 17yr old has done and continues to follow helpfull guidance from wrongfull actions that got him into trouble whilst being in the care of CYFS. As a result I was made to take my 17yr old son to the airport with a plane ticket CYFS brought for him to leave the sth Island with No money and no plan for when he arrived at the other end. My son and I have waited some 13yrs to be reunited.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:14 am
So in conclusion to my recent submission CYFS and all government Authorities related to CYFS needs to just understand that as much as they can BULLY us loving parents into some BLACK corner with no exit some of us have been there for such a long time that we have found a way to release our anguish and so be it if it is through the Wounderful world of WEB Surfing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 31st, 2008 at 8:18 am
Finally to finish any submissions for now WOULD CYFS with support from the government LIKE to COMPENSATE families for TIME, DAYS, MONTHS, and YEARS missed out on thier children DUE to being wrongfully SUCKED up into the system we are ordered to obey???????????????????????
August 25th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I haven,t heard any success stories and all I am seeing is damaged and abused children coming out of care. People need to open their eyes . Families are being dictated and bullied and destroyed . NZ is allowing one group of people to over ride common decency. Good on CYFswatch and those who stand up others in need, for exposing and asking for accountability.