Japan to oblige social media operators to combat fake info

The parties, which include the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance, aim to enact legislation during the ongoing session of the Diet, the country's parliament, ahead of unified local elections next spring.

The agreement was made at a meeting of a cross-party council on election campaigns.

Actions expected to be taken by platforms include halting reward payments to users and improving the capacity to respond to content deletion requests.

The parties plan to require operators to assess the extent to which such measures are implemented and disclose the results.

The possible legislation will also mandate operators to label content generated through artificial intelligence on their platforms.

Following the agreement, the parties asked the Legislative Bureau of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, to begin drafting a bill.

The legislation is also expected to feature the easing of rules on the use of emails for election campaigns.

"We were able to reach a consensus that handling the situation with existing laws is difficult," LDP lawmaker Ichiro Aisawa said at the meeting.

The parties consider the agreement to be the first outcome of their continuous efforts to tackle disinformation and misinformation.