Anti-flaming strategy from the New Media Risk Association

 　With the rapid spread of social media and the evolution of devices such as smartphones, the risk of using the net has leapt upward precipitously. The frequency of flaming incidents is said to triple yearly. In addition to the fact that a message only needs an instant to spread across social networks, smartphones give anyone the power to easily contribute photos. These trends are poised to accelerate in the future. 
　And employee snaps a pic of a celebrity visiting their store, and the business’ site is flamed. A company president makes a reckless comment on twitter and the corporate site is flamed. Criticism of a television station spills over until even the sponsors are drawing fire. A staff member’s astroturfing email is discovered on social media, and becomes a problem. The various incidents of flaming and information leakage follow many different patterns. It isn’t only that a company might draw criticism for something that happened there, but that it may find itself negatively impacted by the offhand remarks of an employee, and even individuals who’ve done nothing wrong may find themselves taking a lot of heat. 
　Baseless rumor can spread across the internet in an instant, developing into a large problem. For businesses, this is a life-or-death problem that can threaten their very existence. Universities, too have seen their brand fall due to comments by students. In a technological or organizational sense, it is possible to conceive of responses to the issue, but this alone cannot be relied upon. We must cultivate within individuals and organizations the strength to respond to such problems on their own.

　Just as high school girls a decade ago were already tapping out text with only their thumb, Japan is the world leader in the number of internet users, with young and old alike sending and receiving information. A study revealed that among the worlds’ blogs, Japanese was the most often used language. 
　Thus the tendency of problems to arise. Japan is the world leader in flaming, its network users also leading the world in the more problematic aspects of the internet.
　It goes without saying that social media sites can bring large socio-economic benefits. In order to ensure that we reap the greatest reward possible it is important that individuals share information and work towards polishing a strategy against risks such as flame attacks. 
　To that end, the New Media Risk Association (NRA) was established in 2012. I am acting president. The NRA’s roster includes everything from businesses and local government bodies to universities, and in addition to sharing plans for prevention and damage control, we offer certifications in response techniques.
　Going forward, we’d like to build an active and safe information society.