JOC to watch for hateful online posts during Tokyo Olympics

Very easy. Cancel the games, many if not all problems avoided, including this one.

The Japan Olympic Committee would probably consider that to be "hate speech."

Are downvotes considered "hate speech?"

Very easy. Cancel the games, many if not all problems avoided, including this one.

They intend to ban account that criticize JOC or Olympics itself or Suga government under the name of "protect athletes".

Tora

These idiots have no idea about the complexity of this undertaking or how it will be an utter waste of time.

Have you heard of AI? Big Tech outfits like Youtube are doing this routinely already. Say a forbidden word and you get a strike before you know it.

P. Smith

Do you also agree that anti-Korean Japanese nationalist should be able to post hateful messages against Korean competitors?

Yes, they should. And you should be able to post hateful posts against them. Hating something can not be a crime. Calling for criminal activity is a different issue, but I do not want to live in a world where a Ministry of Truth can decide what I am allowed to think.

The Japanese Olympic Committee plans to set up a special team tasked with patrolling social media accounts of athletes to shield them from any potential hateful comments during the Tokyo Games starting next month, an official familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

And who decides what is hateful? And on what laws do they want to act? This is too orwellian to joke about.

They don't have anything better to do worry about?

So let me translate it into what they actually are saying.

Criticising and attacking Athletes that decide to speak out against holding the Olympics or decide not to participate because they feel it is not safe= fair game no action will be taken, if asked why the JOC is not doing something about it, the reply will be that since those Athletes are not part of the Olympics it is not the JOC's problem.

But any athlete that is participating and anyone even questions their lack of understanding and possible dangers of holding such an event during a pandemic, well that will be flagged and demands made to have any such decent by the public removed regardless if it is offensive, threating or just plain every day criticism.

We are already seeing this in other countries as the IOC puts the pressure on new outlets, governments and sports associations.

There is an abundance of democracy and free speech until you say something that does not fit the current agenda or woke narrative, then you are a racist or hate monger or god forbid.... a conservative.

Right on the money, Droll!

Got it, thanks. So anything an SJW finds offensive, in other words, anything they do or say is disagreeable to you then that's hateful. We are not even allowed to disagree online anymore without being concerned.

Is this monitoring mandatory? If so, that is very intrusive and in violation of many international privacy guidelines. It would be best if athletes simply took a moratorium from looking at social media during the games. Messages there can serve as major distractions, good or bad.

What is this special task force gonna do? Follow Twitter, FB, Instagram feeds and then when find what they deem to be an inappropriate comment contact the social media company and ask them to delete it?

These idiots have no idea about the complexity of this undertaking or how it will be an utter waste of time.

Best thing is just to suggest to athletes with thin skins to allow only approved contacts to post messages to them over the duration of the games.

Idiots.

JOC...Define: hateful?

Hate speech is just wrong and so are you if you think it should somehow be allowed in the name of protecting freedom of speech.

Who gets to define hate speech?

The Tokyo Olympics has already been more entertaining than any in recent memory.

From banning condoms, surveillance of athletes and other guests, flip-flopping on alcohol and other policies, The J-Gov Crew has provided an endless stream of hilarity, we can only wonder what crazier hijinks will ensue!

Good to see the online bullying and harassment is being taken seriously. These keyboard Warriors thugs need to be shown their behaviour is unacceptable in a civilized society. Strict measures need to be taken. Those that bully, stalk, spread malicious lies about people etc should be banned from online activities for a period of reflection.

There is an abundance of democracy and free speech until you say something that does not fit the current agenda or woke narrative, then you are a racist or hate monger or god forbid.... a conservative.

Gotta spend the tax payers money somehow....

Hold their hand whilst they compete as well

China's model of society is slowly becoming the norm everywhere, thanks to govt's milking the covid19's fear and the population praying for getting more of it.

Big Brother is watching! Remember what comrade Seiko Hashimoto told us: "your happy smiles will make the Olympics a success!"

Infamous bullying cultural barrier can’t fix it up easily !!

Monitoring this message board endangers extremely !!

What are they going to do? You can't control the accounts of the athletes so the best they could do is ask for it to be removed. There is a line between hate and trolling and people have a right to "dislike" anything they want... not sure where the line in the sand is going to be drawn here.

Strange so many down votes for my pointing out that from what I have seen, the personal attacks have mostly been toward those saying they are not going to the Olympics over safety and that those complaining about safety restrictions being to harsh by not permitting family members, daily testing, quarantine, etc.. get any criticism of their position those comments are usually removed in most western media.

@NOMINATION

Sorry but messages telling someone to "die" or "kill themselves" should definitely be looked into or anything that is a threat against the person.

I think you missed in the article the fact that they took as example messages for pulling out of the games sent to Rikako Ikee. We are not in the "die" message part which should be handled by the social media network to begin with. Not so difficult to have automatic warning when this kind of thing is posted, send a human moderator check the context then act accordingly (removal / warning / contacting people involved / ...).

Also, I agree with @rainyday. If they plan to do what they say they will do, they need to be pretty intrusive.

What about hateful Olympians? Can the JOC ban them, please? U.S. has a few of them, like the discus thrower who is sponsored by “Defund the Police”. Unfortunately they get paid to spread their misery to everyone else.

I guess I know where I'll be headed with my burner Twitter account, Google Translate, and a whole lotta piss and vinegar...

In this case, I am happy for the happy olympics! This olympics is good and best!

Protect them from what, hurt feelings , the truth, how people really feel

Well if it is anything like CBC is doing, the Article about the women's basketball player complaining about not being able to bring her 3 month old baby with her, they will delete any comments that criticise the lack of commonsense and leave up those that make her sound like a victim of mean rules and anti motherhood.

Now if like the Canadian tennis player that decided the Olympics are not safe and pull out, well then they will permit all criticism of his decision and leave up all personal attacks calling him weak, spoiled, privileged, etc...

If I were the JOC I would be more worried about attacks online towards those that pull out or are critical of the games being held.

More restrictions on freedom of speech.

Sorry but messages telling someone to "die" or "kill themselves" should definitely be looked into or anything that is a threat against the person.

I guess Prime Minister Bach decided the JOC should do what the IOC has been doing for months

I for one have known doubt that this will not be limited to Athletes and will include any JOC, IOC member especially Japan's unelected Prime Minister Bach and his deputies but possibly also any decent concerning the Olympics.

If I was an athlete this level of invasive oversight of my personal social media accounts would make me very uncomfortable.

The article isn't clear on this but for it to be effective at actually "protecting" the athletes they would have to monitor not just the public comments on their Twitter feed, etc, but also the private messages that they are receiving too, otherwise it makes no sense. Also if they are going to "shield" the athletes from negative comments it means they'll have to delete the comments before the athlete sees them.

So basically it sounds like the JOC is simply taking control of all athletes' social media accounts. This is such overkill for the problem at hand, which they could use much less invasive ways of dealing with, that I suspect the real motivation is just to extend their control over the athletes themselves and make sure they don't say anything critical about the games (or anything else embarassing).

Good luck, because the hate has been in full effect for over a year now. And it won’t stop. Cause it can’t stop.

I suppose the athletes could just not look at their feeds. or dump the accounts altogether. I seem to function quite well without any social meeja thingies. but then I'm not famous, so....

Protect them from what, hurt feelings , the truth, how people really feel..or the misinformation regarding the covid and the handling of it by the IOC and Tokyo governor? Pathetic !

Much ado about nothing.

Top-notch Olympians have to be thick-skinned to have gotten where they are.

I would suspect that a secondary reason for patrolling Japanese athletes’ social media would be to monitor their whereabouts and limit their criticisms.

My first thoughts too! Christ, everything the Japanese authorities have been doing these past two years is giving the Chinese authorities so many ideas on what to do next year should China's pandemic become anywhere near as bad as Japan's.

Yep, into full propaganda mode.

I would suspect that a secondary reason for patrolling Japanese athletes’ social media would be to monitor their whereabouts and limit their criticisms.

And there will be a lot to criticize the Japanese version of the Olympics.

Bullying is unacceptable. However, seeing what has been happening over the last fes months, I wouldn't trust anyone involved in the Olympics with regulating discourse.

Well, it would be quite easy for athletes to no longer suffer under "hateful online posts." Just drop out. I bet they would be heralded as heroes for putting the country ahead of their own selfish goals. Better yet, cancel the Olympics altogether.

Will each athlete get a personal guide to hold their hand to and from the venues to make sure they don't stub their toes?

The thought police are here.

Going after the athletes themselves seems counterproductive. Put it this way, if they win medals, they are temporary heroes. If they don’t, well, they tried.

The JOC would probably be better off monitoring for snarky, sarcastic and mean comments aimed at themselves, the IOC, and the Japanese government in general. They’re the ones behind this oncoming train wreck.

Well, can’t say they didn’t warn people in advance.

*- “The JOC plans a special team patrolling social media to shield them from any potential hateful comments during the Tokyo Games starting next month,… “ -*

This will be . . . Wait, … someone’s at door …. … .. .

For some, it may be time to drop those questionable ‘usernames’ and perhaps, get a VPN?

Sounds like Japan’s version of Twitter.

If a comment doesn’t fit the pre-approved formula, it is censored and/or removed, and the acct. is canceled.

But this would all be under the guise of ‘protecting the athletes.’ Promoting ‘good sportsmanship’.

Fascism is not your friend.

The Japanese Olympic Committee plans to set up a special team tasked with patrolling social media accounts of athletes to shield them from any potential hateful comments during the Tokyo Games starting next month, an official familiar with the matter said Tuesday.

It is a public relations move to use the athletes as shields from all the criticism directed at the IOC and Japanese officials.

" You think the Games are a scam and Bach is ripping off the public? You don't care about our brave athletes giving their best to achieve their dreams you heartless monster!"

Will this be only limited to athletes social media coverage or expanded to any negative comments in any form about Olympics - under the guise of national pride?

…also how long do they plan to adhere to this draconian rule? In the future as well, or just until the games are finished? So they want to punish people that are critical of the games that over 70% of the public don’t want? When will the JOC and these pinheaded politicians realize that there are more things that are important in life like, life battling this virus, the new variant of this disease, the overall rising cost, safety for both homeland and international athletes, the feeling of the mass majority over their image and reputation to have the see Japan as perfect? This is pathetic even for Japan.

Better get in early then....The whole Olympic movement doesn't care about our families and the potential risk they pose to them. Why would they care about internet comments.

Recently, many here have had to deal with trolls and “sock puppets”. Now, some will worry about a simple ‘opposing viewpoint’, while athletes will not be restricted from expressing their continued opinions on a variety of issues?

Yet, their ‘anonymity’ continues to be protected?

*according to the official, who declined to be named.. ” - *

Sounds like this has the likely potential for some abusive & indiscriminate ”SWATting”?

*- “the JOC envisioned team is to consult with investigative authorities if it finds online comments are “malicious”, …*

Coincidentally(?), readers were all polled just yesterday for opinions of “How would You define ‘hate speech’? -

Many here believe this has already been “in effect” for close to a month now!

What Gall ! What powers do the JOC really have? Creating a totalitarian state to further Their Games?

Will they be monitoring the ultra-nationalist nettoyo scum who were attacking the Emperor as "anti-Japanese" last week for his obliquely expressed concern about holding the Olympics? Let's hope so.

The corporate media has tried to paint opposition to the Olympics as people being anti-athlete, using the sympathetic Ikee as an example, to distract attention from the largely tax-funded $30 billion horrorshow it has turned into.

This is so stupid. I highly doubt any Olympians are that fragile.

If Naomi Osaka drops out from the Olympics, like she did with the French Open, then you would be correct in that she was not an Olympian... but not correct in that she wasn't so fragile.

If you are a high level athlete, yet you cannot handle idiots online saying 'mean things', you have other issues.

The Japanese Olympic Committee plans to set up a special team tasked with patrolling social media accounts of athletes to shield them from any potential hateful comments during the Tokyo Games starting next month,

This is so stupid. I highly doubt any Olympians are that fragile. Take this team and use it to watch over the kids and teens, not adults. And it’s useless if they can’t or won’t fine or prosecute a bully.

Necessary to protect our athletes in a toxic environment with Anti-Japan sentiments and anti-Olympic sentiments running high.

Oldman_13 I agree with you on many things, this one is not one of them. There is a difference in freedom of speech and protecting your National Athletes at a time when we know 100% the hate, bias and attacks will come their way.

Will this be only limited to athletes social media coverage or expanded to any negative comments in any form about Olympics - under the guise of national pride?

More restrictions on freedom of speech.

If some anti-Japan nationalist wants to post hateful messages against Japanese competitors, so be it.

I would suspect that a secondary reason for patrolling Japanese athletes’ social media would be to monitor their whereabouts and limit their criticisms.