Japanese Political Candidates Go Dark Online 91
maximus1 writes "A 59-year-old election law prevents Japanese candidates from blogging and twittering during the campaigning window. So, on Tuesday, 1,370 Japanese will stop all online activity. Candidates get a brief slot on public television, usually in the early or late-night hours when few are watching, to make their pitch. The rest of the time is spent campaigning in neighborhoods, walking through the streets, and making speeches outside railway stations. If opinion polls are to be believed, the Aug. 30 election could be the law's last stand. Voter turnout among the young is poor, and some believe it's because the old-fashioned method of campaigning has failed to energize a population that is surrounded by digital media from the day they are born. 'The Internet must be made available for election campaigns as soon as possible,' the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's second-largest newspaper, wrote in a recent editorial."
To paraphrase... (Score:4, Funny)
Wait, what? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Funny)
Well Japan was always ahead of the rest of the world technologically.
Walking? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:It's the 21st Century, where's my time machine? (Score:1, Funny)
Oh, if only the young and ignorant hadn't voted in the last U.S. election...
and if only everyone voted for Ron Paul
Re:can we get that here, please? (Score:3, Funny)
On the contrary, the megaphone vans is an excellent system for weeding out bad candidates.
In the days before an election, I'd sleep in in the morning, with a notepad next to my bed. Every time I'm awakened by one of those vans, I write the candidate's name on the notepad and go back to sleep. Come election day, I go to the voting booth and pick the best guy on the ballot who is NOT on the notepad. Serves the sleep-disturbing selfish dickwads right.
Japanese elections are meaningless (Score:1, Funny)
One of the four parties you can vote for this time is the "happiness realization party"
http://www.hr-party.jp
(Actually, it's a scam party, but it will be interesting to see how many votes they get)