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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?"
What's that, a new form of thought DRM?
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
A stupid site like Youtube can complement any current mechanism for "ensuring fairness" that has been set up by the city of Tokyo. How can you be more fair than Youtube? Does one of the candidates lack an Internet connection? Are some of them ugly? Let all the candidates upload their stupid videos to Youtube and maybe Tokyo can sell ad space on the skin of the monsters that invade the city on a regular basis, instead of wasting that space on political ads. ...right?
Plus, just because someone has a funny Youtube video doesn't mean you'll vote to put him in charge of your city. Tokyo elections aren't like American Idol
... from well-off candidates being able to distribute printed fliers as often and as broadly as their finances allow, whereas lesser-healed candidates can't do the same? At least with YouTube, people have to take the initiative to go find the video. Conversely, fliers simply appear at your doorstep or are shoved into your hands at the mall. In my mind this is a far more "unfair" practice.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I'm not sure "fair" is the right word. I think most free-thinking individuals would agree that equal access to media is "fair". And any controls and limitations placed on speech are inherently and ultimately "unfair" and abusable.
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I am in huge favor of leaving youtube wide open to NEVER shutting down any videos. And wait for politicians to bitch and whine so loudly that they commit their very own political suicide.
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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It seems to me that the law in Japan did not contemplate online video. They should probably update the law since I believe if a transcript of the speech were posted, it would not be in violation.
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, 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 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 issue that I could see is if this fellow's supporters are astroturfing in order to expose more people to his Youtube spots, and even the effects of something like that would be debatable.
Even before McCain-Feingold, which involves an unprecidented amount of speech restriction for the US in the political context (it has to be the only US law that makes it illegal to criticize the government during an election!), the US had this lovely little chestnut called the Fairness Doctrine, an FTC policy which essentially micromanaged the content of television and radio broadcasts when they were on issues of public importance during an election. That misbegotten regulation has since been slagged, but the "Oh noes, if we let people have soapboxes they will use them to influence folks!" censorial spirit lives on, even in respectable democracies like the US and Japan.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
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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This is what they're really afraid of. It would be very funny if he got elected, especially given how 2ch has done stuff like almost getting Masashi Tashiro as Time's 2001 person of the year.
He does sound really awesome when you pair him with music from Dragonball Z!
The Japanese election laws are actually very strict about this kind of thing. I haven't gone through all the details, but for example, Article 142 of the Public Election Law (Japanese link) limits candidates in prefectural governor elections to 35000+X postcards, where X depends on the number of lower-house national representative in the prefecture, and no fliers at all. There are lots of other rules--applying to anyone, not just candidates--preventing things like visiting people to ask for votes and all sorts of stuff.
Of course, none of it was written with the Internet in mind, so it'll undoubtedly have to change in some manner, and I agree that sites like YouTube could potentially be used to help level the playing field. But at least with respect to the current law, the fairness argument is a valid one.
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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This is the central issue. It seems to me that they want to avoid allowing demagogues to promote themselves by allowing their speeches to be engrained in voters' minds through repetition. Limiting reproduction of election-related speeches is one way to accomplish that.
I personally am not sure it's a wise choice, but I don't think it's unfair, and I don't think free speech necessarily applies to election-related content. Total censorship is unacceptable, but I'm much less sure about limits of the sort in this case.
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?
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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If the subtitles in this version of his speech are correct, then what are they worried about? The majority won't vote for him, and the minority won't get him elected.
If he really wants to destroy the government, then maybe they should do what they always do with violent rebels...
Anyway, I don't really understand Japanese, so I can't be sure of the subtitles.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I live in Tokyo, and know Koichi Toyama, the candidate in question, so I'll bite...
First and foremost, sure, it's illegal by Japanese law. But where does YouTube reside again? There has been little thought regarding the internet and "new media" when in comes to elections and politics in Japan. So little, that it's becoming absurd.
The original election laws were put in place to put an economical cap on elections, and thus leveling the field. Each candidate for the Tokyo metropolitan mayor election needs to pay 3 million yen up front. If they get a certain percentage of votes, the money is returned. (The exact numbers escape me at the moment, but I think it was something along the lines of 10 to 15%.) If they don't, they are "extremist fringes" which shouldn't have ran in the first place. Whether you agree with this concept or not is up to you, but it does have it's advantages. Idiots can still run for office, but they'll waste the money. To be honest, Koichi Toyama fits into the "idiot" profile, but he knew well that the money spent would gather attention, for a fraction of the price of a TV commercial aired in Tokyo. I say he got a bargain. (In his speach, he explicitly states that "If I get elected, the majority will shit their pants. If I get elected, _I_ will shit my pants.")
At least for the Tokyo elections, election posters can only be posted on official boards designated by the election committee. And those posters are paid for through tax dollars (well, yen...). So all candidates get the same exposure, and same number of posters. There is a limit to the number of campaign cars with loud speakers that can roam the streets. There are numerous limits, and I think some of these limits could be imported back to the U.S. for a genuinely level field when it comes to elections. (I'm an ex-pat, by the way.)
That said, the "limit" is so extreme, that candidates are not allowed to pass out flyers of any kind. They are not allowed to post to public areas (including the internet) addressing their political agenda. They cannot mail/e-mail anyone. The best they can do is call their constituents, but even then, they're not allowed to discuss what their political agenda is.
So, how do you determine which candidate to vote for? Well... appearance. Name. Hopefully you heard their speach infront of some train station. Or watched TV. (Contrary to the summary, NHK is not the only broadcaster that broadcasts these speaches. As long as each candidate gets a chance, with the same length and un-edited video, anyone broadcaster can broadcast it.)
Up until now, you really couldn't tell what the candidate was REALLY thinking. Just recently, a candidate from Miyazaki had an idea though. During the election race, homepages cannot be updated. So, he put up his political agenda BEFORE the race started, and left it up. And now, FINALLY, from this election, candidates are allowed to hand out flyers. Again, these flyers are paid for through tax money. Level field.
However, this still doesn't address the fact that YouTube and other CGM-ish media is the exact kind of media that will level the playing grounds in a way that doesn't require economic powers, which the "limits" were placed in for in the first place.
I say let YouTube rule, do no evil, and let this serve as a kick in the ass to the Japanese government as a reminder that this is the 21st century, and getting the "message" out in one way or another is a good thing.
That said, I recently commented on mixi (a Japanese SNS) that all they need to do to get the videos down is to have NHK issue a DMCA take down notice. NHK owns the copyrights. They can issue a DMCA take down notice. (However much you despise that.) And, as far as I can tell, YouTube will comply.
I have a hunch that NHK already knows this, and has forfeited copyrights, or else is playing dumb on purpose. Likewise, the election committee probably knows damn well too. Let's see if this will change the laws any time soon. I for one hope it does.
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.
It's not "levelling the playing field". Quit applying American ideals to other countries. The playing field WAS LEVEL, until YouTube entered the picture. Everyone got their alotted portion of media face-time.
/sacrasm
There's a difference. A TV or radio commercial is something that a party/candidate pays for. Depending on the wealth of the party/candidate, they could easily out-advertise their political competition. The listener/viewer has no choice but to listen to or watch these ads, either. The alternative is switching the media off during election time.
But video on YouTube is passive. Technically it doesn't cost anything. You won't get to see it unless you actively look for it and click "play". The only thing that determines its popularity is the number of times it is viewed. Political affiliation and the wealth of the publisher do not affect the ranking of the video.
What happens if someone tapes a political commercial and plays it back for his guests because he likes it? Should it be illegal to record commercials? Ban video recorders?
What if a political candidate has a website that receives many more hits than all the other candidates? Should websites be banned?
How about polls? Should polls be illegal if they favor one party/candidate over another?
Come on, there's a HUGE difference between paid advertising and some video on YouTube. This is just bickering from the rest of the candidates because of jealousy - so they try to manipulate the system to block this kind of stuff from YouTube instead of figuring out how use this new media to their advantage.
Congratulations for the Anti-American post, however. I missed the "Microsoft Sucks" reference, however. Surely this is all Microsoft's fault.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
> 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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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.
This is the second time I've seen a Japanese person miserably fail to give the bird in the correct way. I was telling my wife, who is Japanese, that when you give the bird, you look at the target in the eyes and put the bird in his face. You don't surreptitiously wave it around behind your podium. Argh, so many cultural gaps we need to bridge, so little time.
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?
never before has a forum existed where anyone can say what they feel and have potentially everyone hear it. it is the ultimate soap box. the paradigm has shifted and I expect to see the politicians begin to address this more forcefully as time goes forward. the younger candidates get it (its NOT a series of tubes to them) and will make use of it, but I am not going to be surprised to see the older politicos condemn this new "heresy" and attempt to squelch it or regulate it to their liking. but this is the true nature, and great value, of a Neutral Network. for once in human history we have built a place where everyone is absolutely, truly free. if you like something, you can find it and find people who like it too. if you dislike something, you are free to either move on or bitch about it if you choose. this is what people in power really fear, that they can no longer tell you what to believe, what to do, how to do it, what you can see, what you can hear, and what you can say. expect to see our WonderfulWorldwideWeb come under attack, be ready to defend it. Viva la Information Revolution!
Did you know that you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
Politics is all about the machine, or party if you prefer. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which is neither, has ruled Japan since 1955, except for one brief interregnum in 1993. Nothing will be tolerated that threatens the established rule of the oligarchy. The election laws are there to insure LDP control. YouTube threatens that in Japan. It's probably not much of a threat, but it's easier to stomp on a little bug than Mothra.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
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"
I have lived in Japan for the past decade. I think it is great that youtube and any other internet services are challanging the way things are done in Japan. For egalitarian reasons (?) the law says speeches are only broadcast on NHK - but in reality the way most of us hear about the politicians is from the damn sound trucks that set up outside of train stations and drive around neighborhoods. They have these vans outfitted with (VERY LOUD) loud speakers on the top of them, and often a place for an entourage to stand on the roof. There is often some woman with a bright, chirpy voice talking about the politician incessantly while he (or she) waves at everyone while wearing white gloves. (To show how 'pure' they are or some such shit.) I absolutely loath these people and this system. I have talked to many Japanese about them and everyone agrees they are annoying, but kind of shrug their shoulders and say 'what can you do'. That is the way things are done. These vans are often parked outside of big train stations but they also drive around neighborhoods (as one is doing right now while I am writing this) blaring their spin about the candidate over a wide swatch of a residential area. I would love it if youtube and Japanese web sites could change the way we get our information about candidates to lessen the noise polition and aggravation that are the norm today.