Lower House Panel OKs Bills on Social Media Use

Tokyo, June 25 (Jiji Press)–The Special Committee on Political Reform of Japan’s House of Representatives on Thursday unanimously approved bills to regulate the use of social media during elections. The bills are likely to be enacted during the current Diet session and implemented in time for next spring’s unified local elections. The bills would amend the public offices election law and the information distribution platform law. Social media users would be urged not to undermine the fairness of elections by spreading misinformation or disinformation. Social media operators would be obliged to take measures to mitigate the negative impact of false information on elections. The committee adopted a supplementary resolution demanding that the internal affairs minister list specific examples of these measures, such as suspending monetization, labeling accounts for monetization, detecting artificial intelligence-generated content, informing users of such content, and displaying reliable information, such as from official websites, on a priority basis. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]