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Tokyo Demands YouTube Play Fair
eldavojohn writes "Recently, the city government of Tokyo has requested that political speeches to be pulled from YouTube, claiming that it gave certain hopefuls an advantage over others for Sunday's election. You may recall YouTube being in trouble with more than a few countries in the past. 'Japanese election law limits the broadcasting of speeches, which are aired only on public broadcaster NHK. Soon after the race kicked off last month, the speech by one fringe candidate, street musician Koichi Toyama, 36, has become a popular attraction on YouTube due to his eccentric, confrontational approach.' Is it fair that some government officials are being viewed more on YouTube than others or is it simply leveling the playing field for anyone with a message since it costs very little to put a video on YouTube?"
Put all the speeches on YouTube and let the public access them. That way the playing field is level.
After all, it would be a horrible thing if someone in Japan wasn't doing the same thing as everyone else. How shameful!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
YouTube is not a broadcaster, it doesn't "air" anything. It is a source of goods for consumption. I don't like the idea of governments forcing me to "consume" candidates equally. If I want to watch more videos of one candidate over another, that should be my right.
Broadcast is a content limited resource, which is why those resources are required to be shared evenly among candidates, the internet isn't limited in that way, so forced rationing doesn't make sense. I can't choose what is broadcast on NBC, but I can choose what I watch on YouTube, that's the difference between the two.
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...the Japanese do realize that YouTube isn't the entire Internet, right? What's stopping this video from popping up at other places?
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The only way Youtube can possibly satisfy every set of laws is by turning it into a country-specific site, and removing videos from specific country sites instead of from the site as a whole. I suspect they'll end up doing this eventually, once they have every country yelling at them for a different contradictory subset of videos.
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any canadate can upload their message.
Just because you want to say something, does not mean people have to listen.
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Everyone knows that no candidate without sufficient money or media backing can make it to any major radio station or tv channel.
things like youtube are needed for leveling the playing field for ANY AND ALL citizens for the first time in WORLD HISTORY.
it was just a fallacious statement that "everyone can run for elections" before. in any country that democratic elections took place, there has been no cases that normal citizens with little income were able to run for important positions and get elected.
this was a pretty little neat trick that ensured the circles who had the money would be the ones ruling the country, and under the pretense of democracy - hey everyone can run for elections. you just wont be able to get heard if you dont have the cash.
internet, with rising connectivity of people and exposure it provides, is being an annoyance for such politician circles, and the media outlets and cartels that backed whichever candidate that would play on their side in the elections and make them get elected.
hence the shithead attack on network neutrality by at&t and their cronies, hence banning of youtube in such countries on political reasons, hence tokyo city's annoyance.
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It's a never-ending source of wonder and despair to watch as pols and other ruling-classers struggle to adjust to 21st Century basic reality. The Tokyo government's stand is like saying no political speeches should be printed because somebody might read one and not the rest. YouTube, unlike broadcast, is a medium of choice: you actively seek what you want to see/hear instead of soaking up what the providers decide you should see. The reason for fairness provisions in broadcasting is that there's the option for broadcasters to eliminate some voices from being accessible. That option does no exist on YouTube or the Net in general. Unlike TV/radio, nobody can subtract candidate's speeches: they can only add them, so there's no issue of thought control (unless Net neutrality loses out, perhaps).
Is that distinction really so hard to get? Is it scary as hell that the world's "leaders" are pretty much uniformly incapable of doing so?
I think the problem is that the upstart candidate ruffled a few feathers by doing something that the others didn't think about doing.
YouTube is, basically, the voice of the people. In and of itself, YouTube has no political agenda. It carries video without discrimination. They themselves do not post anything. I think it's interesting to watch how many corporations and governments have "demanded" things, blocked, banned, and legally threatened YouTube. The desire to shut people up when you are criticized or poked fun at is overwhelming. But when will they realize that the internet cannot be silenced? YouTube merely makes sharing such video incredibly easy. However the sentiment (and the sharing) would happen even if it wasn't for this service.
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I think it would be easy to apply a U.S. perspective to this and cry foul. But if Japan has publicly funded elections and strict, but fair rules about how candidates communicate then maybe they are justified in their action. It seems to me that a slightly stricter approach to election practices might take away the "guy with the most money wins" mentality that has come to dominate the U.S. process.
Limits of free speech are sometimes justified (you can't cry fire in a theater) and this MAY be one of those occasions. Or not.
..is the number one reason we bother to have free speech. (In America, at least.) Any time you restrict political speech, you undermine the entire "right." Without free political speech, none of it can be defended.
> Also, looking at Japan's constitution:
Yea, it says that. But I don't see that piece of paper kicking the ass of politicians who wipe their asses on it. Here in the US we had the fabled 1st Amendment that also made certain promises in that regard but I didn't see it, or the enraged ghosts of the signers, kicking John McCain in the nuts when he ripped it out of our Constituition. Although on a slightly hopeful note it appears the American people (at least the Republicans) appear to be denying McCain a run at the Presidency in repayment for his sins.
In the end paper cannot protect us, only WE can protect us. The paper only represents a contract amongst us as to what we are supposed to put up with before we start shooting the bastards. If we don't uphold our end of that bargain we lose representitive government and get what we have now in most western countries, rule by an elite nobility unbound by any rule of law.
If anyone is still in doubt as to the wisdom of "Campaign Finance Reform" or "Government financing of campaigns" look well upon Japan and see the end product of your logic at it's conclusion. For certain definitions ofthe word it is "Fair" but it is not Free by any definition. There is a wider lesson here regarding the relationship between "Fair" and "Free."
Democrat delenda est
Of course, if Google is smart, they'll see this as an opportunity to seriously change the mechanics of elections,... candidates with less money can create a campaign video and upload it to Youtube, which still stands a decent chance of being viewed by a lot of people; versus the candidates with big bucks that can afford to spend ungodly amounts of money be extorted on advertisements on network television. The good news, too, is that Youtube's "viewership" is increasing, quite substantially, especially among the younger crowds. Network television's viewership is really not doing anything; either remaining stagnant, or possibly decreasing, due to all the crap that the network executives idiots keep broadcasting these days.
If there ever was a time when Google's, "Don't be evil," policy applied, I'd say this is it,. . .
Its not about two countries disagreeing on what laws take precedence. It is about the world's governments finding out that pandora's box is wide open. Information is free, and wants more freedom. When there were only TV and radio stations and newspapers, it was fair to regulate access to them to ensure electoral fair play. Well, say hello to the Internet! It is all three of those mediums wrapped in one nice simple package. The rules need to change when the game changes, and the game has definitely changed regardless of whether anyone wants to admit it or not.
Censorship, for whatever reason is not right. Limiting public access by political candidates is one thing, but limiting all other speech related to it is censorship. By posting a video on YouTube, I can tell the world "hey, look what this guy said. Isn't that bad?"
To require that YouTube limit such speech is overbearing and stupid. One reason this is so is because the government trying to do so will have to play whack-a-mole with every other video sharing site as well. The lid to pandora's box can't be closed that easy. Please let's not forget that YouTube is just ONE video sharing site, and they are taking the brunt of the complaints when the problem should be shared by all video sharing sites.... or none. I vote for the latter.
Governments that believe they can limit the content on the Internet are not only fooling themselves, they are showing the entire world that they are both clueless and in need of removal from office.
Yes, governments could simply shut off access to the outside world and censor all Internet activity within their borders, but that would harm their economy and drive the populace to dislike them vehemently.
Pandora's box cannot be closed now.....
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The law is a good one, in general, it prevents networks sympathetic to a particular candidate to run their speeches 24/7 and deny access to all others. We have similar laws in the US
Exactly - in the US, networks have to be sympathetic to a particular *two* candidates, and are only allowed to have "third party" candidates arrested at presidential debates.
This post may have been a bit vulgar but a valid point was made. It's not flamebait and if I had mod points I would correct it.
WTF?
I think it would be easy to apply a U.S. perspective to this and cry foul. But if Japan has publicly funded elections and strict, but fair rules about how candidates communicate then maybe they are justified in their action.
I agree. The initial reaction among Americans to this news would likely be to cite "free speech" as justification for letting YouTube keep the clips up.
But that's a very Amero-centric way of looking at the world, and is rooted in the same kind of thinking that now has us in trouble in Iraq and is responsible for the dim view taken of us by the rest of the world.
If Japan's laws say speeches can't be broadcast except through government-controlled TV, then I'm sorry, but that's the law. And if Google wants to do business in Japan (as they do), then they need to respect local laws. A US company should not be trying to impose US law or US cultural norms on Japan.
It's perfectly within YouTube's power to geo-restrict these videos to parts of the world where they're allowed. Yes, you can get around those restrictions if you really want to, but there's no reason they shouldn't take reasonable measures to comply with Japanese laws with regard to Japanese videos.
At some point (we can only hope it will be soon), folks are going to realize that the phrase, "information wants to be free," is no more a statement of wishful thinking than, "gasses want to expand to fill their contianer." It's an anthropomorphic way of stating something fundamental about the physics of information with respect to large groups of humans.
All attempts to a) disseminate information to large groups and b) control that dissemination will FAIL. They must fail. The energy required to contain information scales very much logarithmically with respect to the size of the group that receives it, and quickly becomes impractical. We're not telling the RIAA, MPAA, Japanese government, and many others that, "your information is something I should be allowed to have." Rather, we're trying to explain that, "your information is going to be knocking at my door several times a week, and if you make it illegal for me to answer my door, it's just going to end up with me going to jail... does that serve a purpose?
But that's a very Amero-centric way of looking at the world
:-(
Well, YouTube is a very Amero-centric company, seeing as that's where it's located. Japan can get bent.
You cannot redesign the Internet to conform to every podunk country's idea of "law and order." Otherwise, you might as well give every country its own root servers and cut the cables that run between them.
I cannot believe what gets modded Insightful around here these days.
"We have similar laws in the US, which prevents Senator Thompson's "Law and Order" episodes from airing air while he is running for President. It also means Al Franken can not continue his radio show while he runs for Senate."
The problem with this law is that if you ask an entertainer to give up his day job (to avoid influencing his campaign), you should also ask incumbents running for office to do the same. Being an incumbent does give you a significant advantage in elections. And if you expect an actor, or a radio personality, to use (or misuse) his job in the Private sector for his own campaign, you should also expect an incumbent to use (or misuse) his own public office and media appearances for his own personal campaign as well.
"The law is a good one, in general, it prevents networks sympathetic to a particular candidate to run their speeches 24/7 and deny access to all others."
I don't know. This American law you mentioned was written by incumbents -- for incumbents. And the same goes for the Japanese law, that law restricts the non-traditional communication channels, probably because doing so would benefit the traditional incumbent class -- who probably authored this law in the first place.
Personally if I were Japanese, and not part of the elite already, I would be trying to actively disobey such a law. This law is not only out of date, and not applicable, it re-enforces the wrong power structure.
I agree. The initial reaction among Americans to this news would likely be to cite "free speech" as justification for letting YouTube keep the clips up.
But that's a very Amero-centric way of looking at the world, and is rooted in the same kind of thinking that now has us in trouble in Iraq and is responsible for the dim view taken of us by the rest of the world.
No it's not. Iraq was possible because our media system allowed for huge proportions of the American public to have distorted and outright false ideas about the purpose, value, and effect of invading a country ruled by a dictator we ourselves propped up.
If we've actually learned anything, it should be that any government, including our own, that seeks to do the same should have no assistance from any other country. Japan should not have the ability to tell Google not host these videos, just as America should not be able to tell the BBC to ignore our activities in Guantanamo Bay. An appropriate response in all such cases would be "those are your laws, enforce them in your own country."
The way I see it, if this service puts pressure on Japan's legal system they're free to try and stop it. However, the chances of them doing so in the long run is slim. I say buckle up and make some adjustments to the system. The sooner the better.
If japanese law is that japanese politics goes only through japanese TV, then the japanese politicians and supporters who put up the japanese politics are the ones to be reprimanded under japanese law, not YouTube.
If you can't enforce the law within your jurisdiction, maybe it's time to review your law.
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A US company should not be trying to impose US law or US cultural norms on Japan.
Why not? After all 'merica is an empire, not just a country. We Americans have been imposing our norms and culture all over the world for some time now. This would not be the first or last time something like this happens. For better or worse what is going on here is pretty normal. If you dont like it and want it to change thats one thing but its going to happen anyway most likely.
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It's also worth noting that (maybe because of some of these rules?), Japan is effectively a one-party democracy, severely limiting reform rates. I think they could use a few fewer election laws.
According to the article "The site has allowed only certain candidates' speeches to be viewed freely on the site..." which if true, would be a bit unfair. But this feels to me more like "Candidate A has a cooler looking campaign poster than all of the others. So we request that the posters be removed, because more people are looking at them. Its only fair"