Japan to start jailing people for online insults

[thekingofrome]

Here in Germany we once had a guy have his apartment raided by 6 cops because he wrote a tweet to a local politician that said "You're such a dick". That's all he said.

[__turbobrew__]

If anything, politicians should be the first people you are protected to critisize. Politicians work for you — the voting citizen — and if they are doing a poor job you have the right to let them know.

It is frankly insane to watch the frog boil in places where you can have your house raided for insulting someone online. There is a wave of government authoritarianism in many places around the globe, and many citizens are happy with these growing nanny states.

[hGfbjHzuHv]

It was more like „you’re such a wiener“. The most harmless way of referring to a penis. Pimmelgate made it to Wikipedia.

[bamboozled]

Do you have some article related to this I could read ?

Germany is really similar to Japan in that it’s exterior seems very different to what’s going on internally.

[yesbut]

This isn't a start. Its an increase of the maximum prison time of an existing law. It is a response to the bullying of Hana Kimura that led to her committing suicide. Two men connected to bullying her were fined 9,000 yen.

This law will be abused even if it had good intentions.

[uxp100]

9000 yen? It does seem like if you’re going to have the law in the first place a fine that cheap sort of undercuts it. The crime enters the news, and then everyone sees the fine is less than the cost of a special edition fancy blu ray of her wrestling.

[bamboozled]

This will really only help to secure Japans one party rule in my opinion. If it was really about peoples feelings, Japan would do a lot more for peoples mental health.

Posted about this also a few weeks back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31741219

[8bitsrule]

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries." Insult?

[yesbut]

Believe it or not, straight to jail.

[the_only_law]

That was a $2200 mistake.

[norwalkbear]

Every law gets abused by politicians instead of it's original intent - Norwalk's Law

[plaguepilled]

There should be some actual culpability for making decisions this obviously wrong.

[desindol]

How is it wrong? If you are a public figure getting bombarded with death wishes/threats or vile comments about how someone will kill and mutilate your family what are you supposed to do just take it? There has to be consequences for people like that, like there are in real life.

[kirykl]

This is this just criminalizing libel or does the prosecutor need to prove someone has been offended ?

[silverpepsi]

The plain text exactly contradictions your question "The law says an insult means demeaning someone without a specific fact about them — as opposed to defamation"