JOC Launches Team to Combat Defamation of Olympic Athletes

Milan, Feb. 4 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese Olympic Committee has established a special team to protect athletes participating in the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics from defamation, the first such effort for both the summer and winter games. The team consists of six members at its base in Milan, which was shown to the press Tuesday, and 16 members in Tokyo. The members, including lawyers, monitor posts made on social media platforms and comment sections on the Yahoo! Japan News site operated by LY Corp. around the clock. They check content judged by artificial intelligence to contain defamation and request the removal of posts they find to be inappropriate. In malicious cases, the team will consider taking legal action at the request of athletes. From its launch on Jan. 19 through Tuesday, the team issued 380 removal requests, according to the JOC. Recently, Japanese Olympic figure skater Kao Miura of the OrientalBio Skating Club said on social media that he has received aggressive messages, and urged people to stop sending such messages. The International Olympic Committee has also implemented a system to remove harmful posts. “The main purpose is to detect (defamatory posts) early on and request their deletion,” said Hidehito Ito, head of the Japanese delegation to the Milan-Cortina Games. “I don’t want players to feel uncomfortable.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]