No blogging for Japan elections
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- With Japan’s upcoming national election, and with the official 12-day campaigning window now underway, a 59-year-old election law prevents local political hopefuls from twittering.
Or doing anything else online.
Yesterday, 1,370 Japanese stopped blogging, says the IDG News Service, going on, “In an era when politicians are turning to the Internet to interact with potential voters and mobilize a support base … Japanese politicians are restricted to stump speeches, leaflets and posters, and even those are regulated too.”
The Public Offices Election Law, “doesn’t specifically ban use of the Internet, but it does place restrictions on the use of literature and images in campaigning, and that has been interpreted by all to include the Internet,” says the story, continuing:
“Candidates get a brief slot on public television, usually in the early or late-night hours when few are watching, to make their pitch. The rest of the time it’s down to campaigning in neighborhoods, walking through the streets and making speeches outside railway stations.
But, “If you believe the opinion polls, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is on the verge of a historic defeat,” says IDG, adding:
“After more than 50 years of rule, broken only once for a few months, Japanese voters look set to reject the party and hand control of the powerful lower house to the opposition Democratic Party of Japan. The DPJ already controls the upper house and plans some swift changes should it win at the polls. Among those is likely to be the election law.”
IDG News Service – The day the blogging stopped, August 17, 2009
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August 19th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Heh, go Japan. Saving themselves form tiring political hate ads.
August 19th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
And I thought Quebec’s DGEQ was bad…