Japanese Government to Regulate Online Communication

Chris Salzberg writes "The Japanese government made major moves this month toward legislating extensive regulation over online communication. In a series of little-publicized meetings, two distinct government ministries pushed ahead with regulation in three major areas of online communication: web content, mobile phone access, and file sharing. Content regulation will cover anything on the web, including personal blogs and web pages. Upcoming mandatory filtering of mobile phone access is targeted at users under age 18, and will cover chat rooms, forums, bulletin boards and social networking services. File sharing legislation will initially target illegal downloads, but, according to critics, may ultimately broaden to include streaming media from sites such as YouTube."

Comments

Re:Before anyone cries censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

I live on Okinawa, home to the shortest High School school uniform skirts in Japan (and damn proud of it).

Not a day goes by when I don't see some high school girl's underwear (or more when they don't wear them) just by driving to work.

The problem lies with the girls themselves, competing to see who has the shortest skirt, loosest *ahem* socks, etc...

All in all, Japan is not a bad place to live...

Re:A real life bad example

[TapeCutter]

"Just recently in Melbourne a newspaper journalist lifted comments posted on a forum and reported them as fact."

My guess is it's Andrew Bolt in the Herald-Sun, that guy has perfected willfull ignorance as a political tool.

In Melbourne there are three commercial TV channels, every night of the week two of them run current affairs style programs that are full of advertorials, miracle cures, and other sensationalist bullshit. They are often the prime targets in "Chaser's war on everything" (also from Melbourne).

Several different issues, no laws yet

[Petaris]

I read the article and after you get passed the first part and down to the "steps" listed you will see that there are several different issues here, but no laws (that I can tell).

1) The web.
For the web content it looks like they want to be able to filter at will anything the independent body deems "harmful" but don't forget that they will have to prove its harmful and be able to justify their decisions. I am sure that they will see a lot of input from the educational institutions and rights groups on this. One would also note (as did the article) that this doesn't apply to private personal communications (which I take to mean email, chat, voip, etc). And don't forget Japan has a court system too, if this does become law it will see challenges to it. Also this seems to be just a report or recommendation at this point and is not a bill or a law and (according to the article) has not yet been proposed as a bill.

2) Mobile phone filtering for persons under 18.
If you read through this it is clear this was enacted because of parents concerns. Though filtering was available before it was not well advertised and very rarely used. This order (the article doesn't say its a law) just requires the filtering to be on by default and the owner of the phone (usually the parents) can request it (the filtering) to be disabled. So if the parent has a problem with there child's mobile web access being filtered they can just request it be turned off.

3) File Sharing.
This is at the behest of the RIAJ (Recording Industry Association of Japan). They are just doing the same thing as the RIAA. From my take on the article it looks like they are using the same reasoning and justifications as the RIAA have done, and I doubt they will be anymore successful.

So from what I can tell there are no laws or proposed bills yet (other then possibly the mobile phone web filtering, anyone know if this is a law or just a decree?) and there are groups out there speaking against them. They are using the public comments system and voicing their opinion. If you are a Japanese citizen or permanent resident and you have a problem with it voice your opinion about it too. But don't claim it to be more then it is. This same stuff has come up in the US before too, remember the war on porn anyone? Just don't forget that there will be plenty of opposition, after all we know what the internet is for. ;)

Re:Before anyone cries censorship

[u-235-sentinel]

        Anonymous deth threats have no more credibility.

Tell that to Benazir Bhutto[1].


You make a compelling argument there. Death (not deth) threats should always be taken seriously regardless if it's anonymous or not. This should have been investigated and the poster taken to the looney house.


[1] Just in case you're American, she was a former prime minister of Pakistan[2]
[2] It's near India.

Thanks for the Geography lesson. Believe it or not, some of us have moved past Geography 101

I guess American's no longer have the monopoly on arrogance. Pity. It's spreading.