Daisuke Nakai reports:
The Supreme Court has ruled that individuals posting comments on the Internet must be held to the same standards for criminal libel as writers in other forms of media.
The unprecedented ruling means that individuals can be held criminally responsible for their Internet postings.
In its decision dated Monday, the court’s First Petty Bench rejected an appeal filed by a 38-year-old man found guilty by the Tokyo High Court of libel in connection with his postings about a company that operated franchise ramen shops.
Between October and November 2002, the man wrote on his own website that the company was a “cult group.”
Read more in the Asahi Shimbun. The Yomiuri Shimbun also provides coverage.