Japan Lower House OKs Bills to Regulate Social Media in Elections

Tokyo, June 26 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, approved bills by a majority vote on Friday aimed at addressing the misuse of social media during election campaigns. The bills are expected to be enacted before the current Diet session ends next month after deliberations at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber. They are likely to go into force before next spring’s unified local elections. One of the bills calls for amending the public offices election law to make social media users responsible for not harming the fairness of elections through misinformation and disinformation. Users will be required to disclose when videos and images generated by artificial intelligence are used. The other bill calls for revising the information distribution platform law to oblige social media operators to take measures to reduce adverse effects on elections and report on their implementation every year. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]