2 online hate speech videos removed at request of Osaka city

OSAKA -- Two online hate speech videos have been removed from a video-sharing website at the request of the Osaka Municipal Government, Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura announced on April 10.

The Osaka Municipal Government asked the operator of the website to remove the videos, which a panel of experts judged to fall under the category of hate speech, as specified under an ordinance designed to deter this type of speech.

According to the panel's verdict, the act of uploading three hate speech videos of a demonstration and two propaganda events in the city of Osaka in 2013 on the "Nico Nico Douga" website -- thereby making them available to an unspecified number of viewers -- violated the hate speech ordinance. The demonstration video was later removed from the site by the person who posted it, but the two propaganda videos remained.

On April 5, Yoshimura asked the website operator, Dwango Co., to remove the two videos, in accordance with a clause in the ordinance that permits consultation with the panel at a later date, in cases where immediate measures are required to prevent widespread damage. Dwango reportedly notified the municipal government on April 7 that the two propaganda videos had been deleted.

This means that all three videos that were classified as hate speech under the ordinance have now been removed from the Nico Nico website.