Regulation on SNS Election Campaign

Seven major parties in the Diet agreed on taking measures to regulate activities in electoral campaigns through social networking services (SNS). Not ignoring explicitly inappropriate campaign in some elections, the parties embarked on excluding some internet influencers who interfere other campaign of innocent candidates. They decided that freedom of expression could be restricted in some cases. 

SNS is having great influence on national and local elections. In the gubernatorial election in Tokyo last July, 56 candidates ran for only one seat. Some of them obviously did not have any intention to be elected and governing the Tokyo metropolitan government. In the election for governor of Hyogo prefecture last November, false information and defamation about candidates spread through SNS.

 

It is supposed that some influencers focus on earning views for their postings about election campaign, which brings certain profit for them. Such “attention economy” is alleged to be distorting fairness of election for public officers. Candidate who does not seek being elected erodes fundamental meaning of election which is recognized as the basic system for democracy.

 

Information Exchange Platform Dealing Act determines that a platformer does not need to compensate for deleting posts which harms someone’s fame. Quoting that provision, the parties discussed an idea to introduce a rule in elections that the platformer can stop paying for inappropriate posts during the period of election campaign. It may prevent earning rewards from excessive argument on elections.

 

In the Hyogo gubernatorial election, some influencers posted arguning that power harassment by the incumbent candidate had been fabricated information, which was baseless. That postings worked for reelection of the incumbent candidate. Other postings falsely accused the incumbent’s rival that she had been upholding foreigners’ eligibility for voting. Although it was totally baseless, the information worked against her.

 

In the same election, one candidate strongly demanded his supporters not to vote for him, but for the incumbent candidate. The incumbent was effectively supported by two campaigns, which was dubbed as two-horsepower campaign. The parties discussed regulation against that kind of election campaign. The parties agreed on introducing a phrase, “Considering fairness among candidates, necessary measures need to be taken,” in a related law.

 

In the Tokyo gubernatorial election, the public poster board was filled with the posters of some candidates who ran for their advertisement. A group collected candidates who wanted to be paid attention. There appeared some posters not related to the election, which did not introduce who the candidate was. Some of them included explicit picture inappropriate to public view.

 

The parties consider that they will pass a revision of current election law demanding each poster to describe the name of the candidate, or penalty on commercial advertising for some goods on the posters. They are dealing with unexpected occasion brought by highly influential social network which is downgrading democracy.