Yomiuri, LY Brief Professional Baseball Players Association on Protecting Players’ Privacy; Meeting Attended by Players from Every Team in the League

The Yomiuri Shimbun

7:00 JST, February 15, 2024

The Yomiuri Shimbun and IT giant LY Corp. held an online briefing for the Japan Professional Baseball Players Association (JPBPA) on Monday regarding the two companies’ joint efforts to respect the players’ privacy in online articles.

The briefing was attended by JPBPA chairman Tsubasa Aizawa of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp as well as players who joined on a voluntary basis.

Riichiro Maeki, managing editor of The Yomiuri Shimbun, delivered the opening remarks, explaining the purpose of the joint initiative: “We want to protect the [players’] privacy and bring about a society where everyone can live happily.”

Kentaro Kawabe, chairman of LY, said: “By taking privacy into consideration, we hope to make every player more active and report on stories that will please fans.”

Aizawa said facing the public spotlight is part of the job for professional baseball players. “So we were conflicted about how much we could express ourselves,” he added. “Based on the discussion today, our association would like to speak out [about issues related to privacy] as well.”

In October last year, The Yomiuri Shimbun and LY issued a joint statement aimed at cultivating a healthy internet environment. Currently, LY is not publishing articles deemed to lack proper consideration of privacy on the top of Yahoo News, while The Yomiuri Shimbun is limiting the period of time its articles on incidents and accidents can be viewed online.