Photo/Illutration A man reads an online bulletin board on his smartphone. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

With online defamation becoming a serious social problem, the communications ministry is preparing to take action to make it easier for victims to remove the posts and be notified of the response. 

The ministry plans to call on social media and other online platform operators to specify guidelines for deleting defamatory posts and respond to deletion requests within “about a week,” sources said.

A draft outline of the plan was approved on Nov. 21 during a meeting of an expert panel under the ministry that is discussing countermeasures against online defamation.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications plans to draw up rules, possibly under laws, after the expert panel compiles a report by the end of the year.

Companies that operate social media, bulletin boards and other platforms have stipulated terms of service, and delete slanderous posts or suspend user accounts if deemed necessary.

But critics said criteria for deleting posts are sometimes ambiguous and that it is unclear what actions were taken in response to deletion requests.

The ministry concluded that it will be appropriate to have platform operators establish guidelines that define criteria and procedures for deleting defamatory posts and publish them.

The draft outline called on operators to designate a contact point for accepting requests for deletion from victims as well as to provide responses in Japanese.

It also said the victim should be notified of the response, regardless if the post in question was deleted, including reasons for the decision.

The prospective rules would cover domestic and foreign operators of “services for the purpose of exchanges among unspecified users” above a certain scale.

The draft outline said the scale will be determined by multiple indicators, such as the number of users and the number of posts.

Meanwhile, the ministry has decided not to seek to specify the right of users to request platform operators to delete slanderous posts in the law.

“It is appropriate to continue to carefully discuss the issue,” the draft outline said.

The right to request deletion has been recognized in court precedents, but there is no law that clearly stipulates such a privilege. 

Writing the right into law is expected to make it easier to ask for prompt responses from platform operators, particularly those based overseas.

But there are concerns that abuse of the right to request deletion may infringe on the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution.

The communications ministry's action comes as the number of reports of online defamation hovers at a high level. 

The hotline for illegal and harmful information, commissioned by the ministry, received 5,745 related consultations in fiscal 2022.

By operator and service, consultations about Twitter, now known as X, accounted for 15.3 percent of the total, followed by Google at 9.6 percent and Meta, operator of Facebook and Instagram, at 4.1 percent.

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