In Japan, if you tweet, retweet or love, do you have to be responsible for your speech?

In June 2020, independent journalist Shiori Ito held a press conference, announcing that she had filed a lawsuit against the far-right cartoonist Toshiko Hasumi (はすみとしこ) and two men who retweeted Toshiko Hasami's tweet on the grounds that she slandered Shiori Ito on the Internet. Hasumi Toshiko deleted the relevant post, posted an apology notice, and demanded 5.5 million yen. As for the two men who retweeted Toshiko Hasumi's tweet, they each demanded compensation of 1.1 million yen and the reposted article must be removed.

The lawsuit was decided in November last year (2021), and Hasumi Toshiko should compensate Ito Shiori 880,000 yen. As for the two men who retweeted Hasami Toshiko's post, they should also compensate Ito Shiori 110,000 yen each.

But this lawsuit actually has a side case.

Series of Litigation Extra Cases

In August 2020, Shiori Ito additionally sued the Liberal Democratic Party's House of Representatives member Sugita Mizuma and former Tokyo University special associate professor Osawa Shenghei. The reason is:

1. Sugita Mizutami loved the tweet of Hasumi Tsushiko mentioned above.
2. Osawa Shenghei, after Ito Shiori filed a lawsuit against Hasami Toshiko and the two men who retweeted her tweet, criticized Ito Shiori on Twitter and questioned that "Ito Shiori" was a pseudonym, and filed a defamation lawsuit.

Osawa Shengping's case is easy to understand, and it is basically a general defamation lawsuit. In this case, it was also determined in July 2021 that Osawa Shenghei must compensate Ito Shiori for 330,000 yen.

Therefore, this series of lawsuits is only the case of Sugita Suimai.

Series of lawsuits cover 3 ways Twitter is used

Before examining the Sugita Shui Mai case, let’s quickly sort out the significance of this series of litigation representations:

1. Should the original PO who tweeted false content be held responsible?
   (Defendants: Hasumi Toshiko and Osawa Shohei)
2. Should netizens (influencers, opinion leaders) retweet false content be held responsible?
   (Defendant: 2 men who retweeted Hasami Toshiko’s tweet, one of whom has 5,000 followers and the other who has followed more than 1,500 people)
3. Should people who press love for false content tweets be held responsible?
   (Defendant: Sugita Suimai)

The above three situations include almost all kinds of usage on Twitter. Tweets are untrue and obstruct others' reputations, just like obstructing other people's reputations in public in general. There is no controversy.

Judgment Criteria for Responsible Retweets

In the retweeted part, there are already similar precedents for judgments in Japan. Basically, the attitude of the Japanese courts is: if you retweet other people's content, and you don't attach your own comment when you retweet, then whether you agree with or oppose the content of the tweet today, you are in the wrong place. Help spread the word. If you happen to be an opinion leader followed by a lot of people, then I’m sorry, if you retweet (help to spread) false remarks that hinder the reputation of others, you will be responsible (in a civil lawsuit, the party will be awarded compensation).

Because this has already been judged before, so there is no big problem. Basically, as long as you confirm that the other party has more than a certain level of follower, if you retweet without comments, you will have the same responsibility as the original PO. This is why, when Shiori Ito is fighting this lawsuit, he will need to emphasize how many people follow these two opinion leaders.

The problem lies in the case of Sugita Mizuma. She is a representative of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and currently has 248,000 followers on Twitter. This is the first lawsuit filed in Japan against "love for slanderous speech" , so it has attracted much attention.

Is Tweeting a Love Accountable?

Unlike Facebook, which now has a lot of emojis to choose from, Twitter so far only has a "click heart" function. After pressing the heart, it actually has the effect of "retweeting". Anyone who follows your Twitter account will (have the opportunity) see whose tweet you clicked on the heart on the homepage.

Yesterday (25) the Tokyo District Court rejected Shiori Ito's request, arguing that there are many ways to use "press love on Twitter", because Twitter can only press love, and some people press love to store this tweet as The memo does not mean that you really agree with the content of this tweet, so you cannot use "according to love" as the basis for judging whether the behavior is illegal.

Shiori Ito felt dissatisfied with the verdict, and reiterated her claim since filing the lawsuit, that "according to love" also has the same effect as "retweeting" to spread speech, and this case will be appealed for the second instance.