Regulation on SNS in Elections

The House of Representatives passed bills for regulating postings to social networking services during election campaign. The regulation is aimed at avoiding distribution of wrong information or preventing defamation through SNS to maintain fairness of elections. The related bills are expected to pass the Upper House and be enacted before the end of current session of the Diet. They will be applied to nationwide local elections next April. 

Regulation on election campaign has long been focused on political fund, which would be distorting result of election by buying votes. However, current elections have proved that SNS has great influence on voters by providing with information which is preferrable for a candidate or has negative impact on contenders. Some distribute politically sensational video to attract watchers and earn a number of views. This activity is called “attention economy.”

 

Regardless the leading or opposition, most parties can agree on necessity of some regulation on SNS during election campaign. There are examples of postings in election campaign, which was produced by generative artificial intelligence (AI). Generative AI can easily create a posting with various information, but it is not easy for voters to realize whether the information is true or false.

 

The parties discussed two types of regulations. One is revision of Public Offices Election Act to prevent fake information through SNS. The revision prohibits harming fairness of election by spreading untrue information about candidates. It obligates users of SNS to indicate that the posting was created by generative AI, when it is so made. Although preventing defamation on candidates has been a requirement for best effort, it will be prohibited by law.

 

Another measure is to revise Information Distribution Platform Act, which was legislated in 2024, to obligate platformers to quickly take measures for preventing defamation. The revised law forces platformers to lessen negative impacts on election. The platformers will need to disclose their effort once a year. While it is up to the platformers to decide what kind of measures they would take, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is going to oversee it with setting guidelines.

 

Although it is about the balance between keeping fairness of parliamentary democracy and freedom of expression, elections have been heavily affected by SNS. As voters are receiving information on election less from newspapers or TV news but more from internet. Wrong information in SNS easily affects result of an election.

 

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is involved in a defamation scandal through internet in presidential election of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The scandal was about spreading negative information against her contenders. Although Public Offices Election Act is not applied to LDP presidential election, voters are growingly interested in fairness of election campaign through SNS. 

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