Constitutional Referendum: How Should Spread of False Information Be Prevented?

Editorial

14:59 JST, April 12, 2025

A situation must be avoided in which a critical decision by the people on whether to revise the Constitution is distorted by false information on social media.

The ruling and opposition parties need to discuss in depth how to prevent the spread of such information.

At a meeting of the Commission on the Constitution of the House of Representatives, there was a free discussion on how to deal with false information on social media in the event of a national referendum on constitutional revisions. Many opinions were voiced one after another from both the ruling and opposition parties, saying that fact-checking to verify the truth of information was important.

In the Hyogo gubernatorial election and the Nagoya mayoral election last year, there was a flood of fake posts and unverified information on social media, and it is believed that they had an impact on the election results.

A similar situation could also occur in a national referendum. For example, it is possible that either the forces in favor of or against a constitutional revision could try to influence the direction of the debates by spreading groundless scandals and undermining the credibility of lawmakers who argue against their opinions.

An environment must be created so that people with a variety of opinions can freely and calmly discuss the way the nation’s supreme law should be and to allow the people to be able to make appropriate judgments.

At the committee meeting on Thursday, the opinions of the various parties differed regarding the kind of organizations that should conduct the fact-checking.

Members of the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito argued that it would be appropriate to avoid the involvement of public institutions and to entrust privately run fact-checking organizations with such work, out of consideration for the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Constitution.

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan called for the referendum publicity council, which will be set up in the Diet to handle publicity activities for referendums, to get involved in examining potentially false information.

While freedom of expression and other rights must be respected, the Constitution also states that they must not be abused. Given that false information is causing social confusion, certain restrictions are essential.

Many private fact-checking organizations are nonprofit organizations, and they cannot be said to have sufficient human or financial resources for so large a task. One possible idea would be for the government to provide financial and other support to such organizations.

In Europe in recent years, a number of countries have taken steps to introduce legal regulations on the grounds that Russia and other countries have been spreading false information and meddling in elections and politics in various countries.

The European Union has established an organization to monitor interference from other countries. It has also set up a legal requirement for social media service providers to delete false information. In the United Kingdom, fines and imprisonment have been established as penalties against the dissemination of false information.

Japan should also consider how to regulate such false information by using such European actions as reference.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, April 12, 2025)