Japan’s parliament passed a new bill on Monday, toughening penalties for those found guilty of making “online insults.” The amendment to the penal code is set to take effect later this summer.
Under the new legislation, making “online insults” can attract a sentence of up to one year in prison for anyone convicted, or a fine of some 300,000 yen (around $2,200). Before the change, offenders faced only a minor fine, a mere 10,000 yen (some $75), or less than 30 days of detention. The new legislation also extends the statute of limitations from one to three years.
The legislation, widely perceived as an attempt to clamp down on cyberbullying, had faced criticism in Japan over its potential implications for freedom of speech. Under Japan’s penal code, insults are defined quite vaguely and understood as a public way to demean one’s social standing without bringing up concrete facts. The offense is different from defamation, which is effectively the same but must involve certain facts to be classified as such.