No bots: Japan drafts rules for social media platforms ahead of local elections

Japan’s communications ministry on Friday unveiled draft guidelines outlining measures for 13 major social media operators to help reduce the impact of misinformation and disinformation that could undermine fairness during elections.

The guidelines also include measures such as requiring operators to establish eligibility requirements and strict screening procedures for users of monetisation features, suspend monetisation when content that harms the fairness of elections is posted, and add warning labels to harmful images and videos generated by artificial intelligence.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications will solicit public comments starting on Saturday before formally adopting the guidelines.

In July, the parliament enacted a revised law on information distribution platforms requiring operators to mitigate harmful impacts and the ministry to issue detailed implementation guidelines. The revised law will take effect March 1, 2027, and apply to unified local elections in the spring, expected to be the next major event on Japan’s political calendar.

“We will work to raise awareness broadly so that effective measures can be implemented,” Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Hisayuki Fujii told a news conference on Friday, adding that the guidelines could be formally adopted as early as year-end.

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Bot accounts, which automatically make posts, and accounts linked to programmes used for mass dissemination will also be shut down under the new guidelines.

To prioritise information from reliable sources such as public institutions and candidates, the guidelines call for functionality to make their posts more visible and the implementation of features indicating when candidates’ accounts have been verified.

The guidelines will be applied during official election campaigning periods as well as before and afterwards, while the specific measures to be implemented will be left to individual operators.

To minimise any infringement of individual freedom of expression, the guidelines do not call for the removal of users’ posts and stress that measures should not lead to excessive restrictions on creative activities.

The revised law requires operators to publicly disclose the status of their measures once a year, to ensure the guidelines remain effective.

X and Google are among the 13 operators designated by the ministry under the draft guidelines.