Regulating the Japanese cyberspace, one step at a time

[chompy]

http://gyaku.jp/en/index.php?cmd=contentview&pid=000320
Extracts:

With little fanfare from local or foreign media, the Japanese government made major moves this month toward legislating extensive regulation over online communication and information exchange within its national borders. In a series of little-publicized meetings attracting minimal mainstream coverage, two distinct government ministries, that of Internal Affairs and Communications (Somusho) and that of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Monbukagakusho), pushed ahead with regulation in three major areas of online communication: web content, mobile phone access, and file sharing.

Only days following the release of the Dec. 6 report, again through the Somusho, the government on Dec. 10th requested that mobile phone companies NTT Docomo, KDDI, Softbank and Willcom commence strictly filtering web content to mobile phones for users under the age of 18 [7,8,9,10]. The move to filter content in this area comes at a time when the Japanese market has become saturated with mobile phones, a growing proportion of which are held by high-school and even grade-school students. The proposed policy, in part responding to fears and anxieties expressed by parents about online dating sites, is broad in scope and reportedly covers all websites with forum, chat, and social networking functionality.

According to the new policy proposal, sites would be categorized on two lists, a "blacklist" of sites that would be blocked from mobile access by minors and a "whitelist" of sites that would not. The categorization of sites into each list will reportedly be carried out together with carriers through investigations involving each company targeted. The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) of Japan is indicating that the new policy will be enforced with respect to new users by the end of 2007 and applied to existing users by the summer of 2008 [8].
While it is not yet entirely clear what content will be covered by the new policy, a look at existing filtering services promoted by NTT Docomo reveals the definition of "harmful" content to be very broad indeed. As noted by a number of Japanese bloggers, notably social activist Sakiyama Nobuo, current optional filtering services offered on NTT Docomo phones include categories as sweeping as "lifestyles" (gay, lesbian, etc.), "religion", and "political activity/party", as well as a category termed "communication" covering web forums, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and social networking services. The breadth of this last category in particular threatens to bankrupt youth-oriented services such as "Mobage", a social networking and gaming site for mobile phones, half of whose users are under the age of 18.

One of the key issues raised by opponents of the proposed revisions regards the murky definition of "download" itself. Critics argue that a user cannot determine whether a file is illegal before they actually download it, and even once the file is downloaded, such identification remains difficult. Moreover, it is difficult for users to judge whether, at the time of downloading a file, the site from which the file was downloaded was itself illegal or not. While proponents of the legal revision have argued in favour of a "mark" to identify approved sites, this approach brings with it many new problems; most critically, it would mean that every site not bearing the approved mark would be considered "illegal", a blanket policy many consider extreme [17].

 

[mecmax]

umm... i'm assuming japan has a sort of congress that represents the japanese people. so are they just imposing these laws on the people, authoritarian website censoring like the chinese gov., or did their congress actually vote in favor of passing this law?

 

[talz14]

umm... i'm assuming japan has a sort of congress that represents the japanese people. so are they just imposing these laws on the people, authoritarian website censoring like the chinese gov., or did their congress actually vote in favor of passing this law?

Well, the US has a congress that seems to be passing all kinds of crazy stupid laws, so I wouldn't put it past them...

 

[Fast Eddie]

Politicians are politicians. give them a rope (power) and they all want to be cowboys (in charge of all your activities).

The Japanese aren't thrilled with them either, BTW.

 

[ASSASSIN27]

I read last year about a 17 year old, male, high school student who turned himself in to the police after another girl at his high school reported that he had r***ing her at a school sponsored dance event one evening. It was later found out that this young male student had r***ing and even tortured 30 girls at and around his school district (outside Shibuya area). When authorities questioned him on why he did this he replied that he was simply imitating what he watched from porn and read in manga. At first I found this hard to believe, but later learned that it was true. This kid had been watching porn and reading adult manga since he was about 12 year's old. What he failed to do was grow mature and learn the difference between real life and media fiction and the things you can and cannot do in the real world. Do adult materials really effect and motivate certain individuals to act in harmful ways? I don't know, I'm not a psych major, but I can tell you that Tokyo felt a lot safer at night year's ago than it does now. My housemate Mari calls me everytime she is leaving her university and i meet her to walk her home at shinjuku station when i have the time. i guess this is just an example of how frightful girl's are becoming of the street's of Japan. Whatever...I still like it here. ^^V

 

[porkar]

It looks like the Internet will soon become as boring and prosaic as newspapers and those crappy gossip magazines.
The new Australian Government has announced plans to compulsorily filter web content to all ISPs. In other words censorship will be applied at the enrty level not at the voluntary home level, so we will have little choice as to what content we want to see; it just won't be available. This coming from a political party that used to be more broadminded than its predecessor; the prudes and bible bashers are winning this one. I might just go back to snailband and save money.

 

[D.W.]

BAWWWWWWWWWWWW

Just read shit and eat junk food and be happy. So what if you become crazy murderous it's all about how happy you do it.

 

[ssb82]

i won't be too surprised when one day all the countries in the world become a communist state looking at how my government is running my country and looking at other country.
regulating everything. damn them shit heads.erhaps:issed::destroy: