Tokyo Election Commission Worried People Might Actually Watch Candidate Speeches On YouTube
from the it-might-make-them-more-educated! dept
There's just something about politicians and their inability to understand the internet. Slashdot points us to an article about the Tokyo Election Commission demanding that YouTube take down videos of various local political candidates after a "fringe" candidate started getting plenty of attention. Apparently, Japan only allows candidate speeches to be aired on the local public broadcasting network, and somehow having them up on YouTube isn't fair. We're not exactly sure how making candidate videos available to more people in a more convenient way could ever be considered less fair, but I guess that's why we're not on the Tokyo Election Commission. Still, you would think that with the big challenges involved in making the electorate more informed, people would be enthusiastically supporting the idea of making the videos more, not less, available. Oh well. Maybe this means that Japan will ban YouTube as well.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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If only public broadcasting (PBS in the USA) is allowed to broadcast candidate speeches, politicians couldn't buy air time based on how much money they can raise from special interests.
That sounds like a good idea to me. Of course, there are other ways to advertise. It's a good step if it also covers other media.
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Terrible idea
The fact is, any law restricting the ability to express a point of view is a restriction of freedom of speech. And setting up a government-run monopoly for outlet of information for elections is just ridiculous.
It's already bad enough here-- in the 90 days leading up to an election, I could not buy radio or TV ads expressing my preference, thanks to McCain-Feingold. And yet even the moronic goal of 'getting the money out of politics' was not only not reached but totally backfired after. Repeal? No way, the intention was good.
For Japan to try to do this is short-sighted, stupid, counter-productive, and plain wrong.
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Re: Terrible idea
In the US the government run monopoly that gives people permission to broadcast their message on the airwaves is called the FCC and, generally speaking, permission has a price.
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Re: Re: Terrible idea
I've never heard of the FCC intervening to refuse political candidates to air their views, do you care to give examples?
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Re: Re: Re: Terrible idea
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Japan=North Korea=China
http://travel.state.gov/family/abduction/country/country_501.html
http://japan.usembas sy.gov/e/p/tp-20040322-50.html
Posting these links has led to many death threats and bannings from Japan forums before. Most recently, after I posted these on halvsie.com, I started receiving death threats within hours, and site moderators started making long lists of false accusations against me, sending me private messages demanding that I "admit" them. I posted the site owner's name, address, and phone number to ask if that is where I should send legal correspondence, which caused the moderators to panic and quickly delete the post.
Funny thing is, when I tell this stuff to real Japanese, they usually agree with me. The people who make death threats are usually white Japanophiles or half-Japanese who aren't accepted as one of their kind.
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Re:
I figure every speech will be available on you tube for the presidential election of 2008 and we will see one or two of the front runners sink into the swamp. I can already see the highlights of my local town council meetings on you tube.
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Re:
By that reasoning a law requiring a license to speak or publish would have "nothing to do with the right to free speech" either. I would disagree.
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The Ishihara Regime
Recently, he has infuriated France by saying that "French don't know how to count, therefore it is not worthy of an international language." He also described the Japanese occupation of Korea as the "Korean people's choice".
http://www.japan-press.co.jp/2003/2357/tokyogov.html
Back in the 1980s, he wrote a book, "The Japan That Can Say No", in which he predicted that the US economy will fall apart. So yeah, it is safe to say that Tokyo is run by a fascist government.
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Japan, the new USA
Recently, he has infuriated France by saying that "French don't know how to count, therefore it is not worthy of an international language." He also described the Japanese occupation of Korea as the "Korean people's choice"."
Our own little USA! Ahhh the Generals who conquered Japan must be so proud!
They even hate the French! :) wow, just amazing. I bet all those neocapitalists and neoliberals just cream their pants when they read stuff like this.
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Re: Japan, the new USA
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Is there a similarity?
Oh just that he is following so closely our footsteps in the political arena using fear and hostility to control and manipulate the people. Plus the fascism seems to be right at heart with our recent preferentially treatment of companies like Halliburton.
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@ dorpus & mike
To say that "Japan is the world's largest abductor of children" is as true as to say that "US army is the world's largest criminal organization" just because it refuses the International Court authority.
@Mike
Why can't a country have it's own law ? And if the law said there must not be campaigning like the one on youtube then THEY can talk about it and one day maybe change it. In the mean time shouldn't Tokyo Election Commission follow the Japanese law ?
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Correlation =/= Causation
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