Are The NZ Media Awards Sponsored By a Conspiracy Theorist?

“I tend to be on the internet a lot doing my own research about things.”

Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Seeby Woodhouse was “CEO and owner of Voyager”, as per his LinkedIn account:

He stepped back from being CEO five years ago - and is currently the founder and majority shareholder of Voyager.

---

Hi,

Perhaps in 2025 it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the founder and majority shareholder of Voyager Internet — the major sponsor of the New Zealand Media Awards — has taken to sharing a variety of Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories to his 1.2 million followers.

This included sharing a post from an account called “maketruthareligion” which claimed there was “no mass murder of European Jews” and “No gas chambers in Nazi camps”.

---

Seeby Woodhouse is somewhat known in New Zealand. “Single, wealthy, 35, and a few regrets” wrote the Herald in 2012, explaining how Seeby made $20 million when he sold the ISP he’d founded, Orcon, back in 2007.

He bought an Audi and a Maserati with the proceeds of the Orcon sale. The latter car picked up a speeding ticket for travelling at 174km/h on the Napier-Taupo road. He appealed against the ticket, lost, paid it and lost his licence for six months.

"I have a Maserati. It is a car that can happily do 300km/h - not that that's an excuse.

"But there's a difference between doing it in an old rusty Cortina and in a new sports car.

"I love speed," he says. "There's a time and place for going nuts in a sports car.

From there he brought a cliff-top mansion that ended up being the location for the New Zealand version of Next Top Model - and in 2010 founded a new ISP, Voyager.

For years his Instagram account has slowly grown, featuring a lot of his photos from dance parties in New Zealand and overseas.

Burning Man featured heavily in 2019, and in 2024 he was at Coachella.

Up until recently, his Instagram stories have largely been centred around festivals, parties, technology and women — but that all took a turn last week when he started reposting content from accounts like “Cleardreammedia”, “Torahteachings”, “Jesusarmyonline”, “Ukpredclips” and “Crashout4Christ”.

The stories came thick and fast, and seemed to focus on two key topics: Anti-Muslim rhetoric, and conspiracy theories about Jewish people running the world.

One series of posts seemed to focus on the “grooming gangs story” out of the UK — something British journalist Dr. Annie Kelly wrote an explainer on for Webworm back in January:

“As is the far right’s talent, they’ve taken a story of real institutional failings for which there is real public anger and twisted it into a weapon against immigrants, the left, and ultimately, many of the victims themselves.”

New Zealand billionaire Nick Mowbray was the last rich New Zealander to go down that particular rabbit hole, tweeting in support of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson.

Perhaps the least surprising thing that could happen is another wealthy businessman with a penchant for partying going down the same pipeline - but it struck me as somewhat ironic that the guy who sponsors the combatting-conspiracy-theories-and-telling-the-truth-awards is also sharing a bunch of baseless conspiracy theories to over a million people.

Seeby Woodhouse.

With that in mind, I reached out to Seeby Woodhouse about his posts over the last week. He got back within two hours, sending a long series of messages beginning with, “I tend to be on the internet a lot doing my own research about things.”

He then wrote at length about becoming interested in the Grooming Gangs story:

“The fact that this man had 23 friends he could sell a blinded 13 year British girl for sex implies some deeper cultural or religious issue, and that’s what I’ve been digging into over the last week, trying to work out for myself what’s going on.”

I won’t publish all of his text here, as it leans heavily into the rhetoric explored in Webworm’s Grooming Gangs explainer.

In regards to the post he shared saying that, “The purpose of wars was to make [Jews] leaders of the world”, he said:

“It’s a Jewish person talking about how they want endless war until Jews are at the top of the global order - this is not me posting white supremacist theories or having an opinion, this is a Jewish person speaking in his own words.”

He then spoke more broadly about his story posts, saying:

“In a broader context, my posts are not to be taken with an opinion attached - it’s merely “hey look at this and form your own opinion”.”

With that in mind, I showed him another of the posts he’d shared, which was both 100% false and deeply offensive.

“I just thought that was weird, obviously the holocaust happened. Like I said above, me posting something is not me being pro-or anti, merely me saying “Hey look at this thing I found.”

“Me re-posting that was, holy shit look what’s doing the rounds, definitely not I’m siding with this.”

I am not sure what to make of Seeby Woodhouse’s state of mind. Some of his posts he appears believe and double down on, while others he frames as him going — in his words — “Hey look at this thing I found.”

I’m not sure either approach is particularly helpful, especially when you’re sharing material denying the deaths of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

This year, Seeby’s Voyager Internet looks to be — again — the naming sponsor of the Voyager Media Awards. Back in 2023, Webworm won “Best Team Investigation” at the awards.

At some point during the evening, Seeby gave a speech. I’m curious what his speech will be about this year. I suggest someone from the Voyager Media Awards board (including the CEO of NZME and the owner of Stuff) gives it a quick look-over first.

Seeby Woodhouse speaking at the 2019 Voyagers.