{"id":8785,"date":"2011-04-15T02:08:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-14T17:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=8785"},"modified":"2011-04-15T03:34:57","modified_gmt":"2011-04-14T18:34:57","slug":"sna-goj-targets-harmful-internet-rumors-including-those-that-earthquake-was-caused-by-foreign-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=8785","title":{"rendered":"SNA: “GOJ targets harmful internet rumors”, including the earthquake being caused by foreign terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hi Blog. Here we have GOJ agencies working to stem malicious rumors from proliferating online, including those targeting NJ. Good. It’s also presented (by a news blog) as a debate between those who feel they have a right to know (and feel betrayed by the official media as an information source) and those who feel they can say anything they like about anybody thanks to freedom of speech. It’s a fine line, to be sure, but I’m glad to see somebody official trying to tackle (or, rather, at least thinking about tackling) the issue of hate speech against NJ. But without clear legal guidelines about what constitutes “hate speech” (or for that matter, “immoral information”) in Japan, those who don’t trust the government will no doubt foresee a wave of official censorship. Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

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Japanese Government Targets \u201cHarmful Rumors\u201d
\nShingetsu News Agency 2011.04.13, courtesy MS
\nBy Makiko Segawa
\nhttp:\/\/shingetsublog.jugem.jp\/?eid=75<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SNA (Tokyo) — The Japanese government has now entered into the business of deciding what citizens may or may not talk about in public.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A new project team has been created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the National Police Agency, and METI to combat \u201crumors\u201d deemed harmful to Japanese security in the wake of the March 11 disaster.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Specifically, these government organizations asserted in a press release that the damage caused by earthquakes and by the nuclear accident are being magnified by irresponsible rumors, and that the government must take steps against this trend for the sake of the public good.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Specifically, the project team is sending \u201cletters of request\u201d to such organizations as telephone companies, internet providers, cable television stations, and others, demanding that they \u201ctake adequate measures based on the guidelines in response to illegal information.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The measures envisioned seem to relate primarily to erasing any information from internet sites written by members of the general public that the authorities deem to be harmful to public order and morality. People may also receive warnings.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

When the SNA asked the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication to provide concrete examples of how the government tracked down \u201cimmoral\u201d information on the internet, the official in charge of the telecommunications bureau said, \u201cWe have not carried out any enforcement actions yet. I cannot explain in detail how we are operating since the roles are partly divided according to the ministries involved.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, are doing,\u201d the official added, \u201cis to urge net providers such as NTT and KDDI to follow our guidelines.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Telecom Services Association reveals that the following requests have thus far come from the government:<\/p>\n

March 17: Erase descriptions of the earthquake as a man-made event
\nMarch 24: Erase descriptions about the manufacturers of the troubled nuclear reactors
\nMarch 28: Erase claim that the earthquake was caused by foreign terrorism
\nApril 1: Eliminate the pictures of dead bodies posted on blogs<\/p>\n

The Telecom Services Association complied with some of the government requests.<\/p>\n

Eri Watanabe, a member of FoE Japan, an international NGO dealing with environmental issues, fears that the government’s strategy is a first step to \u201cjustify censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government had conveyed the correct information from the beginning,\u201d she asserts, \u201cthen they would have headed off the spread of rumors. The media and the government have not been properly explaining the meaning of radiation level numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kazumi Asano, a Tokyo-based blogger, exclaimed, \u201cThey are just afraid of people exposing their close connection with TEPCO!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Asano claims that she knew in advance that the severity of the nuclear accident would be raised to a 7 because she heard it from friends who work as TEPCO engineers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the blogs that are revealing the facts to the public,\u201d she contends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government cannot track down all of us and eliminate the people\u2019s freedom of expression!\u201d<\/p>\n

————————<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Makiko Segawa is a staff writer at the Shingetsu News Agency.
\nENDS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SNA: A new project team has been created by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, the National Police Agency, and METI to combat \u201crumors\u201d deemed harmful to Japanese security in the wake of the March 11 disaster.<\/p>\n

Specifically, these government organizations asserted in a press release that the damage caused by earthquakes and by the nuclear accident are being magnified by irresponsible rumors, and that the government must take steps against this trend for the sake of the public good…<\/p>\n

The Telecom Services Association reveals that the following requests have thus far come from the government:
\nMarch 17: Erase descriptions of the earthquake as a man-made event
\nMarch 24: Erase descriptions about the manufacturers of the troubled nuclear reactors
\nMarch 28: Erase claim that the earthquake was caused by foreign terrorism…<\/p>\n

COMMENT: Here we have GOJ agencies working to stem malicious rumors from proliferating online, including those targeting NJ. Good. It’s also presented (by a news blog) as a debate between those who feel they have a right to know (and feel betrayed by the official media as an information source) and those who feel they can say anything they like about anybody thanks to freedom of speech. It’s a fine line, to be sure, but I’m glad to see somebody official trying to tackle (or, rather, at least thinking about tackling) the issue of hate speech against NJ. But without clear legal guidelines about what constitutes “hate speech” (or for that matter, “immoral information”) in Japan, those who don’t trust the government will no doubt foresee a wave of official censorship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,35,52,5,4,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-discrimination-templates","category-good-news","category-hate-speech","category-human-rights","category-japanese-government","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}