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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
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.
http://www.mhall119.com
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.
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
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.
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?
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.