By SHOKO MATSUURA/ Staff Writer
September 1, 2022 at 15:51 JST
The Osaka District Court’s building (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
OSAKA--The Osaka District Court on Aug. 31 ordered an internet service provider to disclose information on an individual who defamed a virtual YouTuber character.
Presiding Judge Masatoshi Ishimaru said a woman who posts videos on the internet as a virtual YouTuber “acts wearing an image of an avatar as if it is a costume.”
Therefore, the libelous statements made against her computer-generated alter ego also libeled the woman, Ishimaru concluded.
The woman posts videos as a virtual YouTuber, or VTuber, but keeps her real name and face hidden from the public. Her Twitter account is popular, boasting more than a million followers.
According to the ruling, an anonymous person posted disparaging messages in May 2021 on a free online forum created to talk about the woman. Those messages included, “She can’t be helped because she is an idiot,” and “She is mentally immature because she doesn’t have a mother.”
The woman filed a lawsuit against an internet service provider, which claimed that the posts damaged her reputation and demanded the provider disclose the identity of the individual who posted the messages.
The internet provider argued that the messages “may be aimed at an avatar but not at the woman.”
The court said the language and behavior of the avatar comes from the woman’s own uniqueness and reflects her experiences.
The woman has conducted an act of expression through the avatar, the court said.
“Even if the insult was directed at an avatar on the surface, it can be recognized that it was directed at a person who works as an avatar, so it was the woman who was defamed,” the court said.
The Tokyo District Court made a similar decision in March this year in a defamation case involving a virtual YouTuber.
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