CENSORED by the Japan Times

[Samurai_Jerk]

My issue was with "trying to brush off a J-copper is never a good idea perhaps?" as that suggested something special about Japanese police which is not present in other law enforcement organisations.

Let me defend cops in Japan for a change. I know you're fucked once you're officially arrested in Japan, but I would say that cops here are a lot more tolerant of belligerent behavior from civilians than cops in the USA. I've seen them take serious verbal and even light physical abuse from people and never lose their cool. It seems they're very well trained at trying to deescalate whereas cops in the US are often the ones who ramp things up because they're itching for an excuse to use their tasers and batons.

[Wage Slave]

I honestly think you are getting way too semiotic about this Wagyl and you are underestimating the power of the minimum least effort to achieve effective communication rule. I reckon it is more just a convenient abbreviation given that Jap is not available because it carries a derogatory connotation. It is extremely common to shorten nationalities if only because typing out, for example Japanese or Australian or British, again and again is tiresome and dare I say it - dull. So - J, Brit/GB/Pom and Oz(zie)/Doc. Pom and Doc may sometimes be mildly derogatory but it's a special case, no?

[wagyl]

Perhaps you are right and I am overthinking it all.

I still find it amusing to read all J-word sentences without the J, and ask myself whether the Japaneseness is truly a factor. Is the nationality really making a meaningful difference in all these cases? The ease of the abbreviation means that "J" gets appended more often it should. But I am doing no more than stating my opinion again and adding nothing to the discussion, so I will leave it there. I've said it, it is out there, no more to add.

What is a Doc when he is not abbreviated? Not even urbandictionary is helping me much.

[GomiGirl]

Well the point was mainly that it is not necessary to make everything into a Japanese vs non-Japanese discussion - sometimes adding a nationality is superfluous to the discussion at best and at worst is a sign of underlying prejudices.

[Wage Slave]

What is a Doc when he is not abbreviated? Not even urbandictionary is helping me much.

Descents Of Convicts. But it hasn't gained much currency outside the world of cricket. Not a term I use as I'm not into racial epithets of any kind but it was formulated as a response to Pom. Not meant to be really nasty ..........most cases anyway.

[wagyl]

Well the point was mainly that it is not necessary to make everything into a Japanese vs non-Japanese discussion - sometimes adding a nationality is superfluous to the discussion at best and at worst is a sign of underlying prejudices.

Sasuga GomiGirl: cuts through the crap and gets to the pith! An excellent restatement.

What is a Doc when he is not abbreviated? Not even urbandictionary is helping me much.

Descents Of Convicts. But it hasn't gained much currency outside the world of cricket. Not a term I use as I'm not into racial epithets of any kind but it was formulated as a response to Pom. Not meant to be really nasty ..........most cases anyway.

OK, thanks for that. It will be interesting to see if that catches on (and whether the targets actually care). Travel to Australia from the UK, a once in a lifetime trip, whether it is the eighteenth century or the twentyfirst.

[GomiGirl]

Well the point was mainly that it is not necessary to make everything into a Japanese vs non-Japanese discussion - sometimes adding a nationality is superfluous to the discussion at best and at worst is a sign of underlying prejudices.

Sasuga GomiGirl: cuts through the crap and gets to the pith! An excellent restatement.

Yes that is me - full of pith and bad manners.

[Wage Slave]

Well the point was mainly that it is not necessary to make everything into a Japanese vs non-Japanese discussion - sometimes adding a nationality is superfluous to the discussion at best and at worst is a sign of underlying prejudices.

For sure. However, I'm not sure the incident you cited does much to make that point. Although I can't be arsed to study the case too deeply a crucial assertion was that he came into contact with the police and was arrested for questioning, not as a result of his actions, but merely as a result of his foreign appearance. In your case, the bike rider drew police attention by his actions and proceeded to refuse to comply with a reasonable request/instruction. Also, the bike rifer was not immediately detained or arrested and taken to a police station for questioning.

[havill]

OT: It took me a week in Manhattan to figure out all the billboards advertising "J-Date" were targeted at Jewish people.
I wondered why all the ads had nothing but White people on them.

(Recent ads are more direct and have words like "Mazel Tov!" on them)

[omae mona]

Although I can't be arsed to study the case too deeply a crucial assertion was that he came into contact with the police and was arrested for questioning, not as a result of his actions, but merely as a result of his foreign appearance.

WS, with due respect, I think that is kind of the reason havill started this thread. His point (which I agree with) is that anybody reading the actual Japanese news articles would probably not come to the conclusion he was arrested merely as a result of his foreign appearance. Debito mistranslated and twisted the news specifically to sway opinions of those who "can't be arsed to study the case too deeply". And JT staff is squelching efforts to simply correct the blatantly incorrect facts Debito stated.

[Samurai_Jerk]

OT: It took me a week in Manhattan to figure out all the billboards advertising "J-Date" were targeted at Jewish people.
I wondered why all the ads had nothing but White people on them.

(Recent ads are more direct and have words like "Mazel Tov!" on them)

Either way it's nebbishes looking for JAP's to date.

[wagyl]

OT: It took me a week in Manhattan to figure out all the billboards advertising "J-Date" were targeted at Jewish people.
I wondered why all the ads had nothing but White people on them.

(Recent ads are more direct and have words like "Mazel Tov!" on them)

Either way it's nebbishes looking for JAP's to date.

I love the catch copy: "Get chosen"

[Wage Slave]

Although I can't be arsed to study the case too deeply a crucial assertion was that he came into contact with the police and was arrested for questioning, not as a result of his actions, but merely as a result of his foreign appearance.

WS, with due respect, I think that is kind of the reason havill started this thread. His point (which I agree with) is that anybody reading the actual Japanese news articles would probably not come to the conclusion he was arrested merely as a result of his foreign appearance. Debito mistranslated and twisted the news specifically to sway opinions of those who "can't be arsed to study the case too deeply". And JT staff is squelching efforts to simply correct the blatantly incorrect facts Debito stated.

Yeah, I understood that much. It seems more to me that they are correctly correcting some of the details but haven't really refuted the crux of it. If they have, then I accept that the guy was behaving suspiciously and only spoke some obscure Filipino dialect so the entire arrest and detention for 7 hours was necessary and reasonable.

And I am forced to wonder a bit - though I am not going to read enough to be sure because life really is too short - whether there is in fact an element of personal vendetta in all this. There is a group of people who seem extraordinarily interested in this person's views and who invest considerable effort in attacking both him and those views. Is that perhaps why the JT pulled the material rather than the fact there were a couple of factual errors that they are ashamed of?

[matsuki]

Although I can't be arsed to study the case too deeply a crucial assertion was that he came into contact with the police and was arrested for questioning, not as a result of his actions, but merely as a result of his foreign appearance.

WS, with due respect, I think that is kind of the reason havill started this thread. His point (which I agree with) is that anybody reading the actual Japanese news articles would probably not come to the conclusion he was arrested merely as a result of his foreign appearance. Debito mistranslated and twisted the news specifically to sway opinions of those who "can't be arsed to study the case too deeply". And JT staff is squelching efforts to simply correct the blatantly incorrect facts Debito stated.

Yeah, I understood that much. It seems more to me that they are correctly correcting some of the details but haven't really refuted the crux of it. If they have, then I accept that the guy was behaving suspiciously and only spoke some obscure Filipino dialect so the entire arrest and detention for 7 hours was necessary and reasonable.

And I am forced to wonder a bit - though I am not going to read enough to be sure because life really is too short - whether there is in fact an element of personal vendetta in all this. There is a group of people who seem extraordinarily interested in this person's views and who invest considerable effort in attacking both him and those views. Is that perhaps why the JT pulled the material rather than the fact there were a couple of factual errors that they are ashamed of?

If that's the case, fuck Debito's article and yeah, the situation is much more understandable.....

As to the stop and check issue in general, I still have an issue with stopping "foreign looking" (or anyone) people to check their gaijin card. Training or otherwise, it's just unnecessary, racist and bullshit procedure that encourages the whole us/them mentality while becoming an annoyance (and possibly more) for whoever is stopped. If someone is legitimately stopped for suspicion of a crime, say they get a report of graffiti and they see a dude walking nearby with a bunch of rattle cans, got no problem with them checking his ID/gaijincard or whatever, during a stop like that....but whoever thought it was a good idea to "train" fuckers at airports here obviously didn't realize that it's probably not the best "first Japan experience" for travelers, fresh off the plane, to have to show their passport to a cop for merely "looking foreign." I've been stopped more times than I can count now at Narita...always in the arrival lounge right after customs. When you're trying to make a train/bus or have someone waiting, it's more than simply annoying. How are they going to handle this shit during the Olympics? ....and for us long term FG, it sure as hell doesn't give a welcoming feel to the country to be stopped, while minding your own business, simply because you look like a opportunity to make it look like the cops are actually busy.(not that it happens that often but that's not an excuse to permit it) Isn't this the cuntry of forever minding other's kimochi? Are there even any stats of how many illegals they actually catch annually by these checks? My guess is probably not a significant number as most of the time they seem to target non-asians, whereas (my guess again) the majority of illegals here are from other Asian countries.

[omae mona]

And I am forced to wonder a bit - though I am not going to read enough to be sure because life really is too short - whether there is in fact an element of personal vendetta in all this. There is a group of people who seem extraordinarily interested in this person's views and who invest considerable effort in attacking both him and those views. Is that perhaps why the JT pulled the material rather than the fact there were a couple of factual errors that they are ashamed of?

I don't think that's a potential explanation for JT's actions. I think I saw all the comments before they were deleted. To the best of my recollection they were calm, professional, and only corrected the facts. There was no personal attack on Debito at all, other than saying his facts were wrong.

And on top of that, his views were not even being challenged. Just his facts. As someone once said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

[wagyl]

And I am forced to wonder a bit - though I am not going to read enough to be sure because life really is too short - whether there is in fact an element of personal vendetta in all this. There is a group of people who seem extraordinarily interested in this person's views and who invest considerable effort in attacking both him and those views. Is that perhaps why the JT pulled the material rather than the fact there were a couple of factual errors that they are ashamed of?

I fully understand the sentiment of not wanting to spend too much time examining the world of Dr ARUDOU Debito. I have never engaged on his site, so I am not talking from first hand experience, but my understanding is that he is pretty heavy handed in "moderating" comments, only approving those which fit with the Debito narrative. There are also allegations that his activism can extend to rallying the troops to picket workplaces of those who criticise him, so yes, it has become personal it seems and the question may be asked as to where that element sprung from. This has raised issues in the past and initiated a bit of soul searching on the part of those working to keep Debito honest, in that they are concerned not to let the actions of the other side drag them down to the same level.

Which is all fine and dandy for an internet blog duel.

Where this becomes different is that we are talking about a newspaper which wants to be taken seriously. I'm not sure that it ever has been taken seriously, though.

Edited to add: I also concur with Omae Mona in his description of the comments in question.

[havill]

And I am forced to wonder a bit - though I am not going to read enough to be sure because life really is too short - whether there is in fact an element of personal vendetta in all this. There is a group of people who seem extraordinarily interested in this person's views and who invest considerable effort in attacking both him and those views. Is that perhaps why the JT pulled the material rather than the fact there were a couple of factual errors that they are ashamed of?

"this person" ... "group of people" ...

All these pronouns and indirect references... I can't figure out who you're talking about. And if *I* can't figure it out, I'm pretty sure others can't either.

As for the reason I commented, it should be obvious: I'm a Japanese national and I'm not racially Japanese, so an article about non-racially Japanese nationals being pulled off the street for not having ID {despite telling the cops they are Japanese nationals} is going to get my attention.

Especially when I can actually read the Japanese and know that the part in {braces} is complete made-up bullshit and I have personal experience with the exact same situation.

Misreporting a police incident, especially one that all the other Japanese newspapers reported it properly and before the English paper, is a big, big, journalistic sin. Especially if the misreporting looks like it had a motive and was not an accident. There's a word for intentionally false news in news sources designed to sway the public's opinion: propaganda.

[GomiGirl]

Debito paints a fairly big target on himself with his hacktivision but that is all well and good for his own blog where he does censor comments of dissenters at will. His playground, his rules - whatever.

The issue, surely, is that the JT is a newspaper that is bound to ensure that the facts are correct and should be making every effort to do so, not deleting comments that point out errors. Why not just get the author to fix the errors in the article or get an independent review of the original Japanese facts?

I am sure that some must take delight in finding factual errors that are published based on dislike of the author but still facts are facts and the JT seems to be allowing Debito to push his own agenda by twisting facts or just getting them wrong which is a very slippery slope.

Is the JT a newspaper or an extension of Debito's blog? Is this negligence? Is this something more sinister?

[GomiGirl]

Eido-san = propaganda!! Thank you!! That was the word I was groping for.

[havill]

I don't think that's a potential explanation for JT's actions. I think I saw all the comments before they were deleted. To the best of my recollection they were calm, professional, and only corrected the facts. There was no personal attack on Debito at all, other than saying his facts were wrong.

And on top of that, his views were not even being challenged. Just his facts. As someone once said, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

I have screenshots of most of the deleted comments (Disqus is helpful that way; your dashboard tells you and gives you a copy of your comments and tells you if the reason they're not being displayed is because of moderator action) if anyone's interested. I also have screenshots of other people's comments being deleted.

The funny thing is that the comments that ARE attacking Debito at a rather personal level ARE NOT being deleted. The comments that seem to be removed tend to fall into two categories:

• One's that imply the JT editors did not fact-check or proof-read
• Followup comments that complain about their comments being censored

In other words, the deletions are more about protecting JT's image regarding editing and standards and quality.

[wagyl]

Maybe they really have got to the stage where a pageview is a pageview, and their integrity or reputation is subordinate to that. Maybe they are happy to be a blog.

[Wage Slave]

Creating propaganda eh? Very emotive language to use especially about a section of the publication which is, after all, opinion and comment. Yes, I agree it seems that the piece was factually wrong about his Japanese language competence (at least as reported by the police) and also wrong about how long he was held. 7 hours as opposed to 12.

Yes, agreed that they should have corrected that or added an erratum. Whether or not those errors is fatal to the validity of the piece is more contentious.

Not that I have ever had any kind of problem with Japanese officialdom. I have never been ID checked and the only contact I have ever had was being breath tested while driving. Since it was on a country road returning to the in law's village where they were having their annual festival it was, I am happy to accept, justified on the basis of their past experience. Every single driver was being tested.

I am white and probably fairly harmless looking these days. I never get any attention at airport security and the like. However, I don't find it a stretch to imagine that others get very unwelcome and intrusive attention for no good reason. I don't like that one little bit and agree that it should be called out when it happens.

[havill]

Creating propaganda eh? Very emotive language to use especially about a section of the publication which is, after all, opinion and comment. Yes, I agree it seems that the piece was factually wrong about his Japanese language competence (at least as reported by the police) and also wrong about how long he was held. 7 hours as opposed to 12.

You forgot a huge point: he also implied that he mentioned his Japanese nationality on the street (he didn't) and thus the police didn't believe him and hauled him in anyway.

Although the section may be "Community", when people describe police activity and news in a NEWSPAPER, even in the Opinion section, people assume that what has been written has passed muster with the Newspaper editors and is Fact, not Opinion.

Unfortunately, the foreign community in Japan (as well as the overseas International audience; Japan Times can and does appear on Google News) that can't read Japanese rely on English papers like the Japan Times, and they assume that what is written, even in Community, passes bare bones standards of journalism.

And that means understanding Japanese at least at the third grade level when reading Japanese news. Mistaking 午後５時すぎ for ５時間？ That's embarrassingly bad Japanese reading comprehension and proofreading skills.

[Wage Slave]

Yes, they should have published an erratum. Agreed. Whether or not use of the term propaganda is justified I suppose people can decide for themselves. I tend to view that as a very strong and loaded term to be reserved for the real thing. Describing things appropriately matters because otherwise important, very strong words tend to lose their power.

As for deleting the comments is concerned, if an erratum had been added then I feel that could have been justifiable as I have some sympathy for moderators who just delete a whole thread when it gets out of hand rather than go through and try to cut and edit it. However, I gather that wasn't the case.

[havill]

Whether or not use of the term propaganda is justified I suppose people can decide for themselves. I tend to view that as a very strong and loaded term to be reserved for the real thing. Describing things appropriately matters because otherwise important, very strong words tend to lose their power.

TL;DR: the dictionaries don't say that using the word "propaganda" for little things is going all Godwin's Law.

So I sort of know where you're coming on this, as I'm a child of the Cold War and the U.S. education & news/media system of that era only used the word "propaganda" in association with Pravda and other information coming out of the Soviet Union, etc.

However, the actual definition in most English dictionaries is something similar to:

Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view

And just to make sure I wasn't being deceived by new world internet dictionary B.S., I looked it up in my old pre-internet graduation-gift 1980 Oxford American Dictionary, which defines it as:

publicity intended to spread ideas or information that will persuade or convince people.

Doesn't even mention the "biased or misleading" clause.

So yeah, given those (and many other) definitions of "propaganda", what Dr. ARUDOU Debito published EXACTLY fits the definition.

Additionally, I checked Merriam-Webster's example usage sentences to see if it's used exclusively for "big sins" like you and I seem to associate/associated the word with (for example, "The North Korean press often distributes propaganda about how its people are well fed and healthy.") In reality, the word is often used for much more benign purposes. Just like the dictionaries imply.

• He was accused of spreading propaganda.
• The report was nothing but lies and propaganda.
• She didn't buy into the propaganda of her day that women had to be soft and submissive. —Maria Shriver, Time, 26 Oct. 2009
• We've so bought into the mass delusion, the nutty propaganda, that now the ideal American family is one that's on steroids … —Anna Quindlen, Newsweek, 27 Apr. 2009
• … just propaganda for a mode of life no one could live without access to the very impulse-suppressing, nostalgia-provoking drugs they don't want you to have … —Richard Ford, Independence Day, 1995
• They see all clear thinking, all sense of reality, and all fineness of living, threatened on every side by propaganda, by advertisement, by film and television. —C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism, 1961

Having bothered to look it up now (two modern online sources -- two versions of English, plus one offline old source), I'm more confident than ever than saying it. By definition, it's "the real thing": propaganda..

[Wage Slave]

It's a mite more complex than checking a few dictionaries I'm afraid. You are overlooking, inter alia, connotation. When discussing the meaning of a word it is at least as important as the denotation. Dictionaries are enormously useful things but they say very little about connotation among other qualities a word has. Consider:

association vs conspiracy
treaty vs pact
sound vs noise
strong willed vs pig headed
overlook vs ignore

In each case the denotation (dictionary definition if you will) is almost identical. However, there is clearly a big difference in the meaning achieved when used and that is driven by differing connotation. Propaganda falls into this category. Do you call PR puff propaganda? How about advertising? How about campaigning? How about spin doctoring? How about Fox News? The BBC? NHK? The Daily Mail? The Guardian?

They all generate "Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view". You wouldn't call all of them (or even any of them possibly) propaganda as according to your dictionary definition you should because you don't think they all deserve that word.

More here as an intro if you are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connotation

[wagyl]

What do we call the deliberate failure to mention pertinent facts, or the deliberate fabrication of facts, in order to promote a particular agenda, in a report presented ostensibly as a factual record of events? I think this is what Havill is alleging is happening here, and that quacks like propaganda to me. For the record, PR Puffery also comes pretty close to that term in my book.

But then again, maybe this truly is the "way too semiotic" thread.

[Wage Slave]

It's a personal judgement - If you feel it is then fair enough. It's not proven as far as I am concerned. A couple of pretty minor points - one not really backed up with solid evidence, and an "implication". Does it really invalidate the entire piece? But anyway - I can't really be bothered with it to be honest.

I would say though that using words with strong negative connotations is not helpful if you want to convince others you have a neutral point of view.

[wagyl]

I also would say that using words with strong negative connotations is not helpful if you want to convince others you have a neutral point of view.

Now this is something I can fully agree with. Appearing extremist only serves to polarise the audience.

To use a Debito saying, we should strive to

mollify the binary.

At times, I feel like I want to say "appearing extremist only serves to polarise the audience," to Debito, too.


I also have to admit that the "meh" factor is pretty strong in this one too. Maybe it is because I never really had high expectations of journalistic rigour at the Japan Times, maybe it is because of declining standards of journalism industry-wide, but I am not really surprised that there has been little reaction to Havill's posts here about the censorship or on another site I follow. The discussion here is more about the incident of the police check and whether the word propaganda is "In Appropriate," than it is about censorship of comments on a news site.

[dimwit]

I get that the OP doesn't like the Japan Times or the fact that they employ a crank like Davy Arbieter, but Christ, at least they cover the news unlike the Daily Gomiuri that has it's nose so far up the ass of the LDP that they don't report and/or bury stories critical of LDP gaffes. That to me is real censorship, and yet I have never once heard the OP criticize the Gomiuri.