Japan Seeking to Govern Top News Web Sites

RemyBR writes "A Japanese government panel is proposing to govern "influential, widely read news-related sites as newspapers and broadcasting are now regulated." The panel, set up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, said Internet service providers (ISPs) should be answerable for breaches of vaguer "minimum regulations" to guard against "illegal and harmful content." The conservative government, led by the Liberal Democratic Party, or LDP, is seeking to have the new laws passed by Parliament in 2010."

Comments

Never fails

[tkrotchko]

Governments, no matter how benign, really hate unfettered access to information.

The most discouraging part is a majority of people seem to agree ("...well, as long as it's to fight the terrorist...").

The most predictable part is someone will say "...this isn't about free speech".

A truism: "When somebody says 'this isn't about free speech', it almost certainly is".

strange...

[superflytnt]

"The conservative government, led by the Liberal Democratic Party"

There's something a little odd about that name, don't you think?

Re:strange...

[causality]

"The conservative government, led by the Liberal Democratic Party"

There's something a little odd about that name, don't you think?

Sounds like the USA to me. "Liberal" and "Conservative", yet no matter which is elected the government expands in size and power. Clever, isn't it? That there might be no real difference between them is a fact about which we are more honest when it comes to other countries, apparently.

Re:strange...

[Samgilljoy]

Only if you assume that American political terminology is standard for the rest of the world.

In most places "liberal" is equivalent to what Americans call "libertarian," and the parties Americans call "liberal' are known as "labor" or "left".

Just want to second that. Here in the U.S., conservatives have labored since the 60's at least to redefine the term "liberal" for their own benefit. They achieved success in late 70's/early 80's. At this point, few people know any meaning for the term other than what the political class uses. Still, everyone is pretty far away from Latin liberalis at this point. I wonder whether the concept behind that term will ever be strong enough again to merit a word that unambiguously denotes it.

"Liberal" in U.S. political discourse is the result of an extremely successful and masterful propaganda/marketing campaign. I despise the result, but damn, you have to admire such conceptual and linguistic control of the masses.

Re:Can't resist...

[m94mni]

Are you kidding?

So when a news agency reports about irregularities in the next election, and the government forces the story to be clearly marked as speculation and inaccurate, you see no problem with that?

Censorship regimes take many forms. You still have things to learn.

There are better ways to stop libel.

[gnutoo]

See US Liable Laws for a good, civil way to take care of malicious harm. Barriers are high to prevent abuse, it's done after the fact and has nothing to do with the government except for the government providing a neutral judge and documentation of the case. Free speech is so important that prior restraint is reserved only for extreme danger like nuclear weapon design and even then it's debatable. Other restraints like the DMCA are laughable and will be struck down sooner than later.

Setting up a powerful board with a vague mandate is a very different kettle of fish. Analogies to broadcast don't hold internet water. The public interest in pull media demands freedom and neutrality where the public interest in once scarce spectrum demanded accountability. We have all seen how abused that power over broadcast was ... because we now have free internet news for fact checking. That free media has proved more consistent, informative and reliable than broadcast ever was. "Regulation" of the internet will make it look more like broadcast than reliable or truthful. Without care, it will be pure censorship and can also be used to smear and cause harm without redress.

It is hard to believe that this basic issue has escaped the attention of those planning "accountability".

Re:Can't resist...

[rubycodez]

do you live in the U.S.A? could you imagine the Bush regime making the standards for "verifiable accuracy", look at their distortions to justify war and warmongering, cover-ups for environmental damage and interfering with scientific studies, etc.

Re:Putin-like

[webmaster404]

It sounds like a Putin-style media. Free-press is getting harder to find in the world.

No its much easier. With the Internet its very very easy to find free press. /. is a good example, Wikileaks is another. CNN and Fox news aren't exactly much "free-press" and if this is "top news sites" that is probobly exactly what the Japanese government seeks to regulate the CNNs and Fox news of Japan not the /. and Wikileaks although they are probably next. So no, free press isn't hard to find, it is much easier then 50 years ago, you no longer need a printing press and paper just a 'net connection and a computer to report.