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

Before anyone cries censorship

[dorpus]

This is a way to make up for the deficiencies of Japan's legal system. Under the present system, people can post anonymously online , often through the "2ch" bulletin board, to make up false accusations about others, post their financial and medical records online, their bank account numbers, spew racist rhetoric, make death threats, etc. Japanese courts have shown no interest in enforcing the egregious violations of other people's rights. At present, there is a whole subculture of professional losers, the "NEETs" in their 20s and 30s who live at home with their parents and don't work, who spend their lives posting this stuff on the web.

Re:Before anyone cries censorship

[Yvanhoe]

And this is bad how ?

Anonymous accusations have no credibility, it would show some maturity in society to just ignore them instead of suing their anonymous authors.

Anonymous deth threats have no more credibility.

Racist rethoric is, as far as I know, free speech.

Posting of financial and medical records are possible only if someone has made a criminal incompetence in a bank or at a medical database. You should sue them instead.

Re:Before anyone cries censorship

[A beautiful mind]

I can post anonymously on Slashdot and say 'Lindsay Lohan has an IQ of 74'

Personally, I'm getting tired of these astroturfers, always spinning the truth to be more favorable for their customer.

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:Before anyone cries censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you try generalizing 100 million people a little more; I don't think you were quite bigoted enough. "Lolicon" is a subset of manga and anime; in no way is your incredibly broad generalization accurate when it comes to the majority of drawn material of any kind. From my experiences in Akihabara, there is no shortage of street performers and costume play cafe advertisers, but certainly no 12-14 year old girls selling photobooks of themselves that I saw in 3 months of near daily visits.

I'd stop taking everything you hear reported in sensationalist or biased media at face value before you go off Japan-bashing.

Re:Before anyone cries censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

First off this is Japan, not the US, so the laws aren't the same, nor is free speech treated the same. Also on this point, don't assume that Japan has as tight of a lock on medical records as the US does.

I will illustrate with an example.

I went to the doctor for a cold. Since I am a foreigner, I have to show my Foreigner Registration Card to see the doctor. This card has my work contact information on it. After my visit was over, the doctor contacted my work and told them I had visited and what I was diagnosed with.

This has happened to other (foreigners) as well. I don't know if the same happens to Japanese people as well. But the point is, don't assume that there is a Japanese HIPPA.

I am not an expert on the Japanese legal system, but I am quite aware that there are very few lawyers here compared to the US. Don't assume that you could just easily sue someone either. I'm sure its not that easy to do in the US, but I would be greatly surprised if the Japanese system was anything close to the US.

I guess this whole point has nothing to do with the original topic at hand. Mainly it was to point out that a lot of the comments, not just this poster's, are rather ethnocentric in nature and shouldn't really be modded as insightful, since they are anything but.

Advice for all governments

[sakdoctor]

Use the AskSlashdot section of this site to find out if your hair brained IT scheme is feasible before suggesting it or spending any money on it.

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).

However

[Blice]

The Japanese government will NOT be regulating Gundam content.