Kiwibank, a New Zealand bank, has sparked debates about freedom of speech and censorship by sending copyright takedown notices to suppress viral and 'explicit' memes on social media that mocked its new sheep mascot named 'Buck.'
The bank introduced the 'Buck' mascot as part of this year's advertising campaign encouraging consumers to 'bank with Kiwi.' However, the cute sheep with green wool quickly attracted unwanted attention online. Viral posts on X contained suggestive remarks about 'Buck's' attractiveness and unfavorable references to New Zealand stereotypes.
In response, the state-owned company requested content removal, leading to the disappearance of the 'Buck' image from the controversial posts, leaving only the phrase: 'this media content was disabled in response to a rights holder notification.' Users reacted by flooding the platform with even more similar messages, and the original post garnered over four million views.
One social media user noted: 'what if we all say that the Kiwibank sheep is sexy. They won't be able to stop us all.' Commenters labeled this situation a classic example of the so-called 'Streisand effect'—where an attempt to hide something attracts even more attention to it.
A Kiwibank representative, Ben Mabone, stated that the company was responding to 'explicit and harmful content distributed using the Buck image.' He added in his statement: 'Our concern was serious, and we felt it was important to address it.' He also acknowledged: 'We understand that the reaction became part of the conversation. We felt that inaction would be wrong due to the harmful content.'
In an open letter to Kiwibank, the New Zealand Freedom of Speech Union accused the company of censorship. The letter stated: 'Copyright protects creative work from copying. It does not protect a brand from ridicule, even from people who like it too much.' It further noted: 'Using copyright to remove speech that the company dislikes is censorship, even if the subject is a sheep.'
New Zealand is long known for having more sheep than people; according to 2025 data, the ratio is 4.5 sheep per person.