Internet Ethics Issues and Action in Japan
EZAWA-Yoshinori(Prof., Kansai University∗ )(President, Japan Association for Network Literacy† )1Introduction

The ﬁrst computer network which has become the foundation of the Internet in Japan was the experimental network among three Universities (TokyoInstitute of Technology, Keio University and the University of Tokyo) in
1984, which was called as JUNET (Japan University Network). Shortly after that, many Universities and research organizations of several companies
have been joined it. Kansai University had joined that in 1987.
In 1985, “WIDE Research Group” (Now the WIDE Project) was founded.
And e-mail exchange written in Japanese started on JUNET in the next
year. JUNET gained international connectivity for the ﬁrst time, a connection to the Computer Science Network (CSNET) in the USA in 1986.
http://www.wide.ad.jp/about/history.html

1.1

First Web site in Japan

The ﬁrst Japanese oﬃcial web site has opened on September 30 in 1992,
and its server was located in KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization).
http://www.ibarakiken.gr.jp/www/index.html

1.2

Internet Population in Japan

According to the government statistics, Japanese Internet population in1997 was only 8,840,000 that is less than ten percent of the population.
Now it is increased as 94,080,000 in 2009, that is the 78 percent of the∗ Department of Informatics, http://www.kansai-u.ac.jp/Fc inf/en/en index.html† JANL, http://www.janl.net/

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population of Japan. And more than half of users access the Internet by themobile terminals as 80,100,000, and another half of them still use personal
computers as 85,140,000.
http://www.soumu.go.jp/johotsusintokei/whitepaper/ja/h22/html/me411100.html

1.3Internet Crime in Japan

According to the National Police Agency, the computer crime and theInternet related crime has been increased since the Internet population
grows. Last year, there were 5,388 network crimes arrested, 699 porno
related crimes arrested and 899 network related frauds arrested.
http://www.npa.go.jp/cyber/statics/index.html

1.4Internet ethical issues in Japan

In Japan, every pupil has to learn moral and ethics at the elementary
schools and the middle schools from 6 years old through 14 years old. Moreover any teacher of the high schools is required to teach social moral andsocial ethics including the Internet ethics by teaching guidelines of the thegovernment.
http://www.mext.go.jp/a menu/shotou/youryou/main4 a2.htm
There have been a lot of problems not only in the real society, but also
in the network society, for example, slandering, insulting, spreading rumor,
obscene posting, plagiarism, and so on.
Although the school bully has been one of the biggest problems in Japan,
we have no reasonable and eﬀective solutions not only for the students andteachers, but also for the board of education.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20120829/k10014634381000.html

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Citizen Actions
In Japan, issues related to the Internet Ethics have been discussed inthe ﬁeld known as Computer Ethics by philosophers and university professors. More recently, many people, including school teachers, and electronic
communication engineers have started to discuss Information ethics andInformation moral education. Notable developments include:
1988 Prof. TUCHIYA-Shun, “On Computer Ethics”, Forum on Scienceand Technology by KAGAKU-GIJUTU-CHO.
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1989 Prof. OCHI-Mitsugu, “A Thought about the Computer Ethics”,Studies on Ethics.
1995 Prof.

MIZUTANI-Masahiko, “Information Ethics as an AppliedEthics.”1995 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, founded “Special Interest Group of Information CommunicationEthics”, later renamed as “Social Implications of Technology and Information Ethics (SITE)”.
http://www.ieice.org/~ site/
1996 Dr. TAKAHASHI-Kunio, “Netiquette Home Page” includes theJapanese translation of RFC1855 (Netiquette Guidelines).
http://www.cgh.ed.jp/netiquette/#doc8/“Web Etiquette” Japanese translation of W3C (Web Etiquette).
http://www.cgh.ed.jp/netiquette/webetqj.html
1996 Information Processing Society Japan, adopted the Code of Ethics
that is based on ACM Code(1992).
http://www.ipsj.or.jp/ipsjcode.html
1997 Prof. EZAWA-Yoshinori et al., founded the Japan Association for
Network Literacy (JANL).
http://www.janl.net/“The ﬁrst symposium on Information Ethics” was held in 1997, andthe 2nd symposium in 1999, the 3rd symposium in 2003, the 4thsymposium in 2008.
JANL translated the book: “A Gift of Fire - Social, Legal, and theInternet” by Sara Baase in 2002, and the 2nd version has publishedin 2007.
1998 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, adopted the Code of Ethics that is based on IEEE Code(1990),
later revised in 2006.
http://www.ieice.org/jpn/about/code3.html
1998 Prof. MIZUTANI, TUCHIYA and OCHI started the “Foundationof Information Ethics: FINE project” which ended in 2001.
http://www.fine.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/tr2/about.html
The ﬁrst International Workshop for Foundation of Information Ethics(FINE99), at Kyoto on March 15-16 in 1999.
http://www.fine.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/tr2/fine1999.html
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2000 The Information Education Circle has published the high school text
book “Use the Internet Properly”, and it is revised in 2003.
http://www.iec-ken.jp/rinri/

3

Government Actions

The Japanese government has established some organizations whose mainsubjects are network security issues. Ethical issues are considered to belong
to the educational ministry.

3.1

Security

1991 Japan Network Association (JNA).
1992 Electronic Network Consortium (ENC).
1992 Japan Computer Emergency Response Team / Coordination Center(JPCERT/CC).
http://www.jpcert.or.jp/
1993 Internet Association Japan (IAJ).
The JNA, ENC, and IAJ have been integrated as IAJ in 2001.
http://www.iajapan.org/
2004 Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA), was established originally based on the Law on Promotion of Information Processing (1970). lPA was reorganized to become an lncorporated Administrative Agency,
http://www.ipa.or.jp/and IPA made an agreement with KISA in 2004.
http://www.ipa.go.jp/about/press/pdf/20040728Press.pdf

3.2

Laws

1997 “Copyright Act” revised in 2009 based on “the WIPO CopyrightTreaty (1996)”.
http://www.bunka.go.jp/chosakuken/21 houkaisei.html
1999 “Information Disclosure Act” revised in 2009.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/it/privacy/houseika/hourituan/41999 “The Act on the Prohibition of Unauthorized Computer Access”.
http://www.npa.go.jp/cyber/legislation/gaiyou/gaiyou.htm
2000 “Basic Act on the Formulation of an Advanced Information andTelecommunication Network Society”.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/it/kihonhou/honbun.html
2002 “Intellectual Property Basic Act”.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/titeki/hourei/021204kihon.html
2003 “Act on the Protection of Personal Information”, based on the “OECD’s
Eight Principles (1980)”.
http://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/it/privacy/houseika/hourituan/

3.3

Education

The ministry of education introduced the information studies for highschools in Japan from 2003, and its main subjects are not only the “Information technology education” but also the “Information moral education”.
2003 “Information Studies” is required for the pupils of secular course inevery Japanese high school.
http://www.ndl.go.jp/jp/data/publication/issue/0604.pdf
2007 Japanese Association for Education of “Information Studies” founded.
http://jaeis.org/

4

The Civilizaton of Japan

While government establishes constitutions and laws, it is not enough tobuild sound society, so we need ethics in any country. Everyone grow up insound culture and he or she becomes healthy citizen by proper education.
Although many people think as Japanese ethics are built upon Japaneseculture that is based on Buddhism and Shinto, almost all of Japanese people
say that they have no religion at all.
There is a book 1 edited by Prof. UMESAO-Tadao whose aim is to help
the overseas to form an accurate understanding of Japan.

1 Seventy-seven keys to the civilization of Japan (Edited by UMESAO-Tadao, SOGENSHA, 1985.)

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4.1

The information society (by Prof. UMESAO-Tadao)

Japan has been taking a leading role in the development of hardware,such as electrical appliances and cameras. In terms of software production,
namely information, Japan has often been on the information receivingside, with fewer occasions of providing information. However in the future,
Japan should be on the providing side as one of Asia’s advanced nations,and should act as a global information center, along with Europe and NorthAmerica.

4.2

Japan becomes Buddhist (Prof. KOYAMA-Shuzo)

Buddhism was founded in India by Shakyamuni in the fourth century B.C.
and developed out of the polytheistic Hindu religion. Whereas Hinduism
remained more or less within the boundaries of India, Buddhism spread
extensively and reached Sri Lanka, the countries of South-East Asia, thelands of the west China, Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan.
Buddhism is characterised by its lack of a single written source of doctrinal authority, by the great changes it has undergone over the ages, by its
complicated ideas, and by its insistence on a basic rule of life which requires
the avoidance of evil and the puriﬁcation of one’s own heart and mind.
When seen from the perspective of monotheistic religions such as Christianity and Islam, which concern themselves with the relationship between
God and man or the submission of man to an absolute being, Buddhism hasfeatures which make it appear quite a diﬀerent kind of religion altogether.
Buddhism reached China during the Han Dynasty, that is, during theﬁrst century A.D., and from the second century onwards Chinese Buddhists
applied themselves to the task of translating the scriptures into Chinese.
By this means, a Chinese version of Buddhism was created and this, then,spread to the various countries of South-East Asia. The ﬁrst wave of Buddhism, which consisted of the kind of Buddhism known as the Mahayanaor the Great Vehicle, thus spread to Korea and from Korea to Japan, andits emphasis on the paciﬁcation and protection of the state was of practicalbeneﬁt for the rulers and administrators of the states to which it spread.
According to the Japanese chronicles known as Nihonshoki, Buddhism
is reported to have ﬁrst reached Japan in 552 when the King of Paekche
presented to the Emperor of Japan a statue of Shakyamuni, some Buddhist
scriptures and various other items. There is, however, a strong possibility
that well before this date Buddhism was known to individuals in Japan, forat that time there was a considerable amount of human contact between
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Japan and the Korean peninsula. It seems that at that time there was atendency for Japanese to think of Buddhism not simply as a religion but asa set of new cultural values.
The implication of all this is that Buddhism was considered in Japan as
little more than a means to various ends, these ends being both administrative and technological. In this respect, its fate in Japan was diﬀerent fromthat of Christianity in Europe.

4.3

Shinto (Prof. KOYAMA-Shuzo)

When Japanese were asked in a recent survey in 1984, what religion they
believed in, 27 per cent said Buddhism, just over 3 per cent said Shinto,
one per cent said Christianity, and 65 per cent or so said that they had noreligion at all. It would appear from the results of this survey that Japaneseare not very interested in religion and in particular that there are very few
who believe in Shinto, Japan’s own ancient religion.
Matters are much less clear, however, when statistics of a diﬀerent kindare considered, such as the numbers of people paying New Year visits toShinto shrines. It seems that throughout the country more than 78 millionpeople visit shrines. Furthermore, no traditional town or village is without ashrine in honour of its tutelary deity where large festivals are held every yearin spring and autumn. Shinto continues to have a place in everyday life too,for many people attach protective Shinto amulets to their motorcars; it iscommon to hold ground-breaking Shinto ceremonies on sites where bridges
or buildings are to be constructed; and there are often small Shinto shrines
on the tops of modern oﬃce buildings. Also, in the home it is usual to have akamidana, a shelf for the household gods, as well as a small Buddhist altar.
So in spite of the surveys, it seems that the attachment of the Japanesepeople to Shinto is still strong. However, the forms that faith and practicetake in Shinto are quite diﬀerent from those that they take, for example, inthe case of a monotheistic religion like Christianity.

4.4

Educating the Nation (by Prof. MORIYA-Takeshi)

The current Japanese literacy rate stands at very close to 100 per cent.
And it is said that the general level of mathematical ability in Japan is very
high too. It is probably fair to say that these high levels of numeracy andliteracy are a reﬂection of the skills and abilities of the Japanese as a nation.
It goes without saying, though, that these levels of ability were notachieved over a short period of time. Rather, it should be said that they7

are the products of decades if not centuries of popular education from theEdo period onwards.
In the Edo period education for common people was in the hands of private schools. The bakufu and the han were enthusiastic about the educationof their vassals, the samurai, but they took no part in the education of thefarmers or the merchant classes and gave it no particular encouragement.
It was rather through the initiative of the townsmen themselves that educational institutions were established in Edo period Japan and the education
spread throughout the country.
At ﬁrst it was mostly Buddhist temples that provided the premises forthe holding of classes, and for this reason private educational institutions
came to be generally referred to as ‘terakoya’, a word which means ’a temple
belongings booth’. But it was far from true that all popular education wasconducted in temple compounds. At the end of the 17th century a ‘terakoya’ schools can be seen at work on the second ﬂoors of bookshops. Soit would appear that in some cases publishing, book selling and education
were conducted on the same premises. Institutions for the education of commoners like ‘terakoya’ had in fact existed from as early as the Muromachi
period in the 15th century but it was only in the Edo period, particularly
from the beginning of the 18th century onwards, that they came to play animportant role.
It is estimated that the total number of ‘terakoya’ founded throughout
the Edo period in all parts of Japan was not less than 10,000. There wererapid rises in their numbers after the start of the 19th century, with anaverage of 140 being established throughout the country each year during
the 1830s, 240 a year during the 1840s, and more than 300 a year during
the 1850s. When allowance is made for the diﬀerent levels of population
density, there seems to have been little diﬀerence between the provision of
educational facilities in urban areas and in country areas.

5Concluding Remarks

We would like to appreciate this beautiful symposium on Internet Ethics
timely designed and organized by KISA and KSIE. Moreover Ezawa would
like to thank KISA for the invitation as a speaker from Japan and giving him
a chance to discuss with many delightful persons on the issues of Internetethics. Finally I would like to thank the board of members of JANL forvarious discussions about this theme.

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