Japan's Joh-Pla Act: 5 Platforms on a 7-Day Deletion Clock

Did you know that five major platform operators in Japan now have a legal obligation to decide whether to delete defamatory posts within 7 days of receiving a request? This is the result of Japan's "Information Distribution Platform Countermeasures Act" (commonly called the "Joh-Pla Act"), which took effect in April 2025. The covered services include YouTube, Instagram, X, TikTok, and platforms operated by LINE Yahoo.

More than a year has passed since the law went into force. As of May 2026, this article sorts out what the obligations actually require, how each company has responded, and what changes for everyday users.

What Is the Joh-Pla Act?

The formal name is the "Act on the Limitation of Liability for Damages of Specified Telecommunications Service Providers and the Right to Demand Disclosure of Identification Information of the Senders" — long enough that even the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) uses the shorthand "Information Distribution Platform Countermeasures Act."

It grew out of the "Provider Liability Limitation Act" that had been in force since 2002. That older law set up the framework for deleting defamatory posts on SNS and identifying senders, but it accumulated complaints — deletions took too long, and the process was opaque. A May 2024 amendment renamed the law and rewrote the rules; the new system took effect on April 1, 2025.

Two big changes stand out. First, a special framework now designates giant platforms and stacks extra obligations on them. Second, deletion decisions now come with deadlines, and operational results must be published.

The Five Designated Companies and Their Services

On April 30, 2025, MIC designated operators with 10 million or more monthly active users as "Large-Scale Specified Telecommunications Service Providers" — too long again, so this article calls them Large-Scale Platform Operators. According to reporting by Internet Watch, the following five companies were designated.

Most of the major SNS, video, and bulletin-board services used in everyday Japanese life are on the list. Designation triggers the additional obligations described below.

Smaller engineer-focused platforms such as Zenn and Qiita are not designated because they do not meet the user-count threshold. They still fall under the general deletion and sender-disclosure rules inherited from the older Provider Liability Limitation Act.

Three New Obligations on the Five Companies

Three additional obligations are layered on the designated operators.

① Setting Up and Publishing a Deletion Request Window

Operators must run a clearly visible intake point for requests such as "this post defames me" or "my personal information was exposed," and publish the procedure. Until now, the request route was buried so deep on each service that many victims gave up before filing anything.

② Decide Within 7 Days of the Request

As a rule, operators must decide whether to delete a post within 7 days of receiving the request, and notify the requester of the result. This is the biggest change in the amendment. The reply must be either "deleted" or "not deleted (with reason)."

A common misreading is "the post must be deleted within 7 days." Strictly, the obligation is to decide and notify within 7 days. Even a refusal counts, as long as a reason is given.

③ Publish Annual Operational Reports

How many deletion requests arrived during the year? How many were granted? What were the most common reasons for refusal? As a rule, this information must be published annually. This is the "transparency" pillar of the law.

Previous complaints — "I sent a request and never heard back," "I have no idea whether it was deleted" — should become measurable. With annual numbers public, the response posture of each company can be compared side by side.

Penalties for Non-Compliance

A company that fails to comply first receives a recommendation and a corrective order from the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications. If the company still does not comply, criminal penalties kick in.

A 100 million yen corporate fine (roughly $650,000 equivalent) is on the heavier side of Japan's information-law landscape. For giants like Google or Meta, the figure is not crippling, but the law is structured so that the fine can be assessed each time a violation is found.

No company has been penalized yet. By design, the law starts with a corrective order from MIC; penalties come only if the order is ignored.

What Changes for Users

Three concrete changes affect everyday users.

First, the deletion request route is now easier to find. Each company has set up a dedicated "rights infringement complaint" form on its help pages, with explicit rules on what identification documents and contact information are needed. Previously, just finding the right form ate up most of the time.

Second, a reply is now guaranteed. Not only when a post is deleted, but also when it is not — a reason must be provided. Silent ignoring of requests is no longer legally possible. For victims dealing with false reviews on shopping sites or non-consensual private images, the path forward is now much clearer.

Third, response quality can now be compared in numbers. Once the transparency reports publish deletion rates and median processing days, "fast-responding companies" and "slow-responding companies" will become visible. That gives advertisers and users more to go on when choosing a platform.

There is also a downside risk: over-deletion. Squeezing large request volumes into a 7-day window may push operators toward mechanical removals that catch innocent posts. In the U.S., a "social media as defective product" jury trial against Meta and Google is already underway, and the debate over platform liability is expanding globally.

Four Additional Designations and What Comes Next

From May 2025 onward, operators of services whose user base grew above the threshold have been designated as well. Multiple Japanese outlets report that DWANGO Co., Ltd. (Niconico Douga), CyberAgent, Inc. (Ameba family), and Pinterest Europe Limited (Pinterest) joined the list.

The threshold is 10 million MAU or 2 million posts per month. Even services that did not meet the bar initially can be added later as their user numbers grow.

Services outside the designation are also moving on their own — handling AI-generated content, updating community guidelines. New SNS designs like Bluesky's AI feed builder "Attie" connect to the same question the Joh-Pla Act is wrestling with: who actually decides what the timeline looks like?

Summary

A year past enforcement, Japan's response to defamation and illegal content on SNS has shifted from "each company decides on its own" to "deadlines fixed by law." The 7-day decision, the annual operational report, the 100 million yen ceiling — these three lines govern the day-to-day work of the large-scale platform operators.

For users, the key takeaway is simple: a reply is now guaranteed when you file. The option of giving up quietly has been pushed one notch back. The second half of fiscal 2026 — when the first transparency reports land — will be the first time the five companies can be compared in numbers. We will keep watching.

References

• ▸ MIC - Response to Illegal and Harmful Information on the Internet (Joh-Pla Act)
• ▸ Internet Watch - MIC designates five companies including Google and LINE Yahoo as large-scale platform operators (April 30, 2025)
• ▸ e-Gov - Act on Specified Telecommunications
• ▸ MIC - Concepts of Ministerial Ordinances and Guidelines under the Joh-Pla Act (PDF)
• ▸ MIC - Reiwa 7 White Paper on Information and Communications: Enforcement of the Joh-Pla Act