Kanazawa Mayor Candidate Challenges Twitter-Banning Japan’s Election System

On November 28th at Kanazawa city, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan there was a mayor election. The two leading candidates, incumbent Tamotsu Yamade [J], 79, and Yukiyoshi Yamano [J], 48, competed closely, gained 56,840 and 58,204 votes respectively. Only 1,364 difference. The things causing a fuss is, the young winner Yamano’s team reportedly had been using Twitter… Continue reading Kanazawa Mayor Candidate Challenges Twitter-Banning Japan’s Election System

Election And Internet In Japan

Agile Media Network held a conference “Internet Changes Election?” [JP] on April 24th. Statesmen and NPOs discussed about the use of Internet for election in Japan. Shin Itoh of Japan Initiative [JP] gave a 30-minutes talk on Japanese Election Law. He said that the law is unreasonably strict. Electoral campaign is only allowed during official… Continue reading Election And Internet In Japan

Twitter & Politics: Can Tweets Change Our Society?

On Tuesday in Roppongi, Tokyo, Glocom (Global Communication Center, International Univ. of Japan) held a workshop focusing on how we can take advantage of Twitter for improving our politics. Invited panelists are: Fumi Yamazaki(@Fumi), freelance researcher and former project manager for Joi Lab, Digital Garage. Daisuke Tsuda(@tsuda), freelance IT journalist and recently reporting on Twitter… Continue reading Twitter & Politics: Can Tweets Change Our Society?

Manga Avatar Candidate Goes For National Election

Fumiya Satoh, a manga artist who draws a boy detective story “Kindaichi Shonen no Jikenbo” which has been sold 80 million copies, who is also a director of culture of the Happiness Realization Party, had a press announcement of her running for coming national election of the house of representative with blotting out herself with… Continue reading Manga Avatar Candidate Goes For National Election

Democratic Party Opens Social Network For Tokyo Citizens

Japan’ opposition Democratic Party (DPJ) Tokyo branch has launched a new website “Tokyo Life”. Tokyo Life has two main sub-sites. One is “Tokyopedia” which is a wiki about topics around Tokyo metropolitan assembly and local administrative information. The tool used for the Wiki part is MediaWiki. It is said that the wiki editors are young… Continue reading Democratic Party Opens Social Network For Tokyo Citizens

Japan’s Internet filtering initiatives

Can you regulate the Cyberspace? Should you? It seems some forces in Japan think it’s possible and you should. There has been a lot of efforts by the Japanese government in the last few weeks to regulate and censor the Internet in various ways. 2 weeks ago, Japan’s National Police Agency hinted it may soon… Continue reading Japan’s Internet filtering initiatives