Japan doesn't need a social media ban, but it must protect children

This year, several countries took steps to address the harms of social media.

Brazil’s Supreme Court banned X for six weeks after a row over disinformation and anti-democratic speech, and Australia announced plans to bar minors from social networks entirely. In June, United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote that such sites should come with a warning label because they are “associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.”

Surprisingly, in Japan, there has not been much discussion of such negative impacts, despite the country grappling with severe mental health issues in children. Japan is the only the Group of Seven member in which suicide is the most common cause of death among teens and people in their 20s, and registered cases of bullying in elementary, junior high and high schools hit a record high of over 730,000 last year, with the number of cyberbullying cases also on the rise.

Without going so far as adopting wholesale abolitions, more conversations about children’s social media use need to be happening and the government should pressure service providers to implement age verification mechanisms and stricter parental controls.

A recent poll by an NTT Docomo-affiliated institute found that 96% of Japanese minors between first and third grade of junior high and 58% of those in fourth to sixth grade of elementary school are on social media — which implies that bullying is becoming harder than ever for adults to detect.

On the other hand, bullies are armed with cameras and are only a few clicks away from amplifying their exploits for the world to see, creating lifelong digital scars for victims. An especially harrowing case occurred three years ago, when a 17-year-old boy in Fukuoka Prefecture took his life after being sexually abused by senior students who then posted the video online.

Katsuhiko Takeda, executive director of the nonprofit Child Fund Japan, says that victims of online sex crimes in Japan rarely consult with others about their experiences, let alone report them to the police. In addition, research companies are reluctant to run surveys related to sexual violence, making it hard to collect evidence of online grooming.

“Teachers are expected to instruct children on gender education and the potential risk of online sexual abuse, but these topics are still taboo in school,” Takeda says. “Keeping them taboo will not help prevent crimes and they have to be discussed more openly.”

In 2022, Child Fund Japan submitted a petition to eradicate online sexual exploitation that garnered over 12,000 signatures. The petition called for Japan to establish a clear legal definition of the term “child sexual abuse material” and stricter control of CSAM on social media, including child-friendly schemes allowing victims to request deleting harmful content.

Even though stricter pre-screening of social media ads was recently discussed by an expert panel, the government has yet to take enough action to regulate sexual, abusive content and boost children’s safety.

For example, when the age of sexual consent was raised from 13 to 16 last year, requests for meetings with under-16-year-olds with the intent of engaging in sexual conduct and obtaining sexual photos were prohibited — but this only scratched the surface of the scourge of online grooming. The term grooming is not explicitly defined by the law, leaving children vulnerable to exploitative and deceptive online relationships disguised as romance.

In fact, the word “grooming” in katakana is more commonly associated with animals — and in a very different context — instead of being discussed to raise awareness about the threat of online (and offline) predators.

The two most common platforms used by minors in Japan are YouTube and Line, according to a recent survey — with the latter, a Japanese messaging app, shifting to a TikTok-like experience, including allowing users to follow each other and incorporating a short-video feature called Voom. Line does not mandate age verification unless a user wants to unlock features for finding and adding people, and no filtering or parental control mechanisms are available, which allows children to join open group chats and see suggested videos regardless of the content.

In 2017, a 46-year-old man in Hyogo Prefecture was accused of obtaining child pornography by taking advantage of these gaps to prey on minors. Pretending to be a 19-year-old model, he interacted with around 1,600 children by joining Line groups for girls in their early teens, asking 130 of them — including some of elementary-school age — for naked photos.

While this case may seem extreme, a recent Child Fund Japan survey found that one in eight young respondents had experienced online requests from strangers to meet or for sexual photos.

As a parent and someone who appreciates creators’ work on social media, I would not feel comfortable with banning my child’s access to such sites entirely. For example, for kids who have friends who live far away or who like to share their work — such as their art — online, these platforms can be very valuable. In Japan, avoiding isolation at school is so important that students connect with their peers online even prior to their high school and college entrance ceremonies.

Besides, digital-native children are much smarter than adults think: They might be able to bypass parental controls or even fake their age to view certain types of content.

However, this does not negate the importance of parental and governmental intervention in regulating social media use. For instance, if a parent or guardian were allowed to monitor group chats on platforms like Line, it would be harder for strangers to access them.

The technology that children have access to is evolving fast, as are online harmful content and criminality, while most adults are not up-to-speed with educating young people on how to protect themselves and their privacy and take care of their mental health. These safeguards are not only essential to thwart potential threats but also as a way to cope with the strong social pressures associated with school life.

After all, social media providers are driven by profit. As I write this, X has relaxed its block policy, allowing users to see the posts of people who have blocked them. Without agile regulation and the right pressure being put on tech companies, adults have too few tools to protect children.

The silence of victims in Japan should not be interpreted as the absence of cyberbullying and online sex crimes. We need technology-based solutions and the government should not spare any effort in protecting minors’ physical safety and mental health.