How personal images and texts are moderated

How are my stories and uploaded images moderated?

We love seeing the stories and images that people contribute to DigitalNZ. We believe these contribute to the depth of the website and enrich those taonga held in institutional collections.

Stories and uploaded images are moderated by DigitalNZ staff in line with our Contributed Content Terms of Use. Behind the scenes, we regularly monitor what people are uploading and adding to digitalnz.org. New stories will be moderated by DigitalNZ and won't be able to be shared until they have been through the moderation process (usually within one working day).

We also moderate Facebook comments on individual items.

How do I report an image that I believe is inappropriate?

You can use the 'Report this image' button to notify us if you see content that you are concerned about. If we receive a notification we will assess the complaint against the criteria set out in our Contributed Content Terms of Use and will remove the content if it violates these Terms. Specifically, content must not:

  • breach DigitalNZ’s terms of use,

  • infringe any intellectual property or privacy rights, 

  • breach any suppression order or any other law, 

  • contain images of taonga Māori (cultural treasures) that are restricted for cultural reasons, or

  • by being available online cause any hurt, harm or be purposefully inflammatory.

We appreciate that people make mistakes and copyright is confusing. Therefore, when possible, we will kōrero with the uploader of the material and seek out a solution. This may simply be changing an image’s licence or attributing some text correctly.

Do you have a policy for Taonga Māori?

It is important that the mana of taonga Māori is protected. While historic images and text may no longer attract copyright or any other form of legal protection, it may not follow tikanga Māori to upload them to DigitalNZ. If, either through our own monitoring or via a notification from an external user, an image or text is flagged as inappropriate, we will consult with a range of stakeholders, which may include the National Library’s Komiti Māori, and the Library's Director of Digital Experience will decide on a course of action.

Get in touch

We welcome any feedback on our moderation process. Get in touch with us on info@digitalnz.org.