Victims of slanderous comments on social media in Japan find that tangled legal procedures and foreign operators' ignorance of Japanese laws make it a near-Herculean task to track down the perpetrators. 

Trying to take their cases to court, defamed individuals soon find making preparations for trial takes much time, labor and money due to various hurdles.

For a start, many operators of social networking platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, are based in the United States. In addition, the popular video sharing site TikTok is run by ByteDance in China.

For that reason, people victimized by insulting and discriminatory messages, as well as offensive images and videos, through such sites need to file suits against the operators’ headquarters in the United States and China to seek justice.

Required for the trials are the original and translated qualification certificates, or corporate registers, of the platform providers. Obtaining the documents in person takes time, so communications records for derogatory remarks could be deleted during the process.

Although Japanese brokers have certificates in stock to enable people to quickly purchase ones, their translation and other fees often total no less than 50,000 yen ($432) to 60,000 yen.

Registers’ copies from some lawyers are available for several thousands of yen, and the Mercari e-commerce marketplace sells them cheaper as well. Still, it is not convenient to have certificates in hand.

“Certificates on occasion run out of stock although procedures need to be carried forward as soon as possible, leaving people with no other choice but to buy them at higher rates,” said an attorney in the Kanto region around Tokyo.

If alterations are made to corporate specifications, such as Facebook’s changing its name to Meta and Twitter’s CEO being replaced, updated documents reflecting modifications must be submitted, forcing plaintiffs to take additional steps.

Simply securing the necessary documents does not mean everything is complete.

Complaints must be sent via the Foreign Ministry to take legal action against social media operators outside Japan, and the first trial typically starts six or more months afterward.

A lawyer in Tokyo who sued Twitter in January 2021 on behalf of a woman damaged by an insulting post said her first legal session started as late as near the end of September that year.

IGNORANCE OF THE LAW

Satoshi Fukazawa, an attorney who has been engaged in many legal instances to demand the identities of slur posters be disclosed, pointed out service providers’ ignorance of the Companies Law is behind the issue.

“Many individuals have just given up without doing anything because much time and money were needed or as telecommunications logs were erased,” said Fukazawa. “If the operators adhered to the Companies Law, this would never happen.”

The Companies Law stipulates that overseas operators that conduct business in Japan continuously should register themselves as foreign corporations in the nation and appoint local representatives responsible for all the operations in the state.

A problem is that when violations of the legislation are confirmed by Japanese courts, enterprises will face a paltry administrative fine of up to 1 million yen. This does not compare with the hundreds of millions of euros imposed as punishment on the U.S. information technology giants, including so-called GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), for various reasons in Europe.

As a result, many foreign companies have yet to formally register themselves in Japan, rendering the law “a dead letter,” according to Masahiro Sogabe, a legal professor at Kyoto University’s graduate school.

Asked about the issue through inquiries made by The Asahi Shimbun in 2021, the Japanese subsidiaries of Google, ByteDance and Meta, operator of Facebook and Instagram, said they have not been officially included in the list of foreign corporations in Japan.

The Japanese headquarters of Facebook explained that it does “not do business continuously in Japan.” The Japanese office of Google declined to comment, while no response came from ByteDance.

Twitter’s Japanese subsidiary declined to comment on “any details including whether our company is registered or not.”

MOVES IN POLITICS, GOVERNMENT

Tetsuo Morishita, an international trade law professor at Sophia University’s Faculty of Law, described the current circumstance as likely inappropriate.

“The provision in the Companies Law is designed to protect trade partners (service users) in Japan,” said Morishita. “Whether enterprises offer Japanese patrons their services in a well-organized manner is a deciding factor, and social media providers are already doing a significant volume of transactions with users in Japan, which indicates they should be formally registered under the existing law.”

Referring to the reason, Morishita said: “Operators doing business globally may see appointing their authorized representatives in Japan as taxing.”

To address the issue, political circles are swinging into action.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s subcommittee on countermeasures against online slander issued an emergency statement in June 2021 as part of efforts to respond to hate speech on the internet, calling for the “thorough registration of foreign providers of social media and other services.”

“It is unacceptable for operators doing business and earning ad revenue in Japan to contribute to an environment where, for example, legal procedures are difficult,” said Lower House lawmaker Masahisa Miyazaki, who is secretary-general of the subcommittee. “Thorough steps should be taken to have them registered as foreign enterprises under the Japanese legislation so that they will conduct operations after making clear where the responsibility lies.”

In line with the political move, the Justice Ministry in October 2021 posted a sign on its website calling on foreign companies to register officially in both Japanese and English.

The Justice Ministry in November also began soliciting information on possible violations of the Companies Law from other ministries and agencies.

(This article was written by Hiroki Ito, Makoto Tsuchiya and Erika Toh.)