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Nine political parties in Japan, spanning both the ruling and opposition blocs, agreed on Thursday to require social media platform operators to address the spread of false information, disinformation, and online abuse during election periods.
The agreement was reached during a meeting of a cross-party council focused on election campaign rules, according to reports from Tokyo. The participating groups included the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance.
Lawmakers said the proposed framework aimed to strengthen platform accountability ahead of the country’s unified local elections scheduled next spring. They said the measures were intended to reduce the influence of harmful online content on voter behavior.
Under the proposal, social media companies were expected to take steps such as stopping monetary rewards for users who post election-related content and improving their systems for handling requests to remove problematic posts.
The parties also planned to require platforms to evaluate how effectively they implemented these safeguards. They said the results of such assessments would need to be made public to ensure transparency.
In addition, the planned legislation would require operators to clearly label content generated through artificial intelligence. Lawmakers said the measure was designed to help users distinguish between authentic and synthetic materials online.
Following the agreement, the cross-party group formally requested the Legislative Bureau of the House of Representatives to begin drafting a bill. The lawmakers aimed to submit the proposed legislation during the current parliamentary session.
The draft measure was also expected to include provisions easing restrictions on the use of email in election campaigning, as part of broader efforts to modernize Japan’s electoral communication rules.