EDITORIAL: Internet campaigns

In a small but important first step, the ruling and opposition parties have agreed to partially lift the ban on Internet use for election campaigns.

Starting with this summer's Upper House election, candidates and parties are allowed to update their websites and blogs during the official campaign period.

The Internet has great advantages and potential as a tool for election campaigns.

Use of the Web makes it possible for candidates to deliver more information to voters. Even under the current ban, candidates are allowed to post their basic policies and political ideas in their sites before the campaign period starts.

Under the new rules, candidates can use the Net to offer up-to-date and real-time information about their campaigns, such as briefings on their rallies and the locations of their campaign speeches the following day.

Voters can obtain such information anytime, anywhere, during the night or even if they are away from Japan.

Voters can also express their thoughts and proposals concerning, for example, the policies and speeches of candidates. Candidates will inevitably be sensitive to such feedback from voters.

The interactive, action-oriented nature of the Internet helps narrow the distance between politicians and voters. That will help bring more people into the political process.

A majority of heavy Net users are young people who have traditionally been indifferent to politics. There is no good reason to refrain from exploiting the great advantages of the Internet to reach the voters.

There are, of course, downsides to the use of the Internet for election campaigns.

False information may be disseminated by people pretending to be specific candidates. Groundless slander could spread in online smear attacks.

These concerns certainly demand careful efforts to reduce such politically motivated malicious Internet activity and traffic. But they should not discourage lawmakers from easing the restrictions on Web-based election campaigns.

Unfortunately, the limited easing of the restrictions will be grossly insufficient partly because the parties put priority on reaching a consensus and partly because there is not enough time to prepare effective measures to deal with potential problems.

For example, the ban on the use of e-mail and Twitter for campaigns will remain in place.

But the most regrettable thing about the agreement is that voters will still be prohibited from starting their own online efforts, such as posting messages, to support their preferred candidates.

What's wrong with voters starting online campaigns to line up backing for specific candidates?

Such efforts are completely different from attempts to spread false information about candidates.

In the next stage of this initiative after the Upper House election, the scope of legal online campaign activities should be expanded to include voters' efforts.

Under the current circumstances ahead of the Upper House election, it is difficult for ordinary people to know what postings can be legally regarded as election campaigns.

If people hesitate to post political comments in fear of violating the law, the Internet cannot bring out the desired effects on election campaigns.

Lawmakers should swiftly develop easy-to-understand guidelines for permissible and illegal postings.

At the root of the issue is the fact that Japan's Public Offices Election Law contains an unusually long list of prohibited activities. Few countries of the world have such a law.

It is unrealistic to expect general voters to know all of the law's banned activities, which include the distribution of documents as part of an election campaign.

In the Internet age, when anyone can express views and opinions to a mass audience, it is easy for voters to unknowingly violate the Public Offices Election Law.

Unless the election system is adjusted to the new realities of our times, there will be no evolution of Japanese politics.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 27