An article in the Washington Post describes Japanese bloggers as the “humble giants of the web”, a characterization which blogger Adamu at Mutant Frog Travelogue blasts for its inaccuracies and stereotypes. He writes: “this dichotomy of Japan as meek navel gazers and Americans as gung-ho self-branding showoffs is totally false”, citing examples of plans for web censorship in Japan and the recent “Terabutadon incident“.
2 comments
I am surprised at this article. Japan’s blogsphere is like the battle field without honor and mercy. The anonymity that characterizes J-blogs is the mesure to defend our social lives. Has this author ever investigated phenomena and incidents in the J-internet history? It seems me that he relied only on the image of the “japanese national character” that the western media often use when they want to offer something strange and different to their audience.
This entire piece was indeed very bad. There has been a frightening trend of Washington Post pieces over the past 12 months that makes one wonder if they are watching the same country that we live in.
The government plans for web censorship (if it can be called that) might be another brewing story, if the government actually gets around to doing something on this issue.