Asia
Japan
Japan's only in-force social-media governance law (the MIC-enforced Information Distribution Platform Act, effective April 2025) mandates content-moderation transparency but nothing on ad libraries, researcher access, risk assessment, audits or recommender transparency.
Scored against the DSA
Each obligation the DSA imposes on very large platforms, and whether Japan’s law requires the same. Cells cover DSA-style, user-protective transparency and accountability only.
- Required by law
- Partial / emerging
- No such obligation
- Undetermined
Transparency
Public ad libraryDSA Art. 39
No ad-library mandate; the TFDPA covers B2B marketplace/app-store ranking disclosure, not a public ad archive.
Transparency reportsDSA Art. 15 / 24 / 42
IDPA requires designated large operators (9 designated in 2025) to publicly disclose removal-request and action status annually.
Source ↗Researcher data accessDSA Art. 40
No vetted-researcher data-access mandate.
Reach disclosureDSA Art. 24(2)
The user-count figure is only a designation threshold reported to MIC, not a public reach-disclosure duty.
Accountability
Systemic risk assessmentDSA Art. 34–35
No systemic or child-safety risk-assessment duty; only proposed in a June 2026 MIC youth-protection draft.
Independent auditDSA Art. 37
No external compliance-audit mandate.
Algorithmic transparencyDSA Art. 27 / 38
No user-facing recommender-transparency or chronological-feed mandate.
Regulator + penaltiesDSA Art. 49–52, 74
MIC enforces IDPA orders; corporate violations of key articles up to about 100M yen (modest by DSA standards).
Source ↗
Child protection
No profiling ads to minorsDSA Art. 26(3) / 28
No ban on targeted advertising to minors.
Age assuranceBeyond the DSA
Narrow in-force duty: dating-site age/ID verification to exclude minors; general social-media age checks only proposed (June 2026).
Source ↗Child-safety duty of careDSA Art. 28
The Youth Internet Environment Act imposes filtering duties on carriers and best-efforts duties on operators; no DSA-style child risk assessment.
Source ↗
On the horizon
What's being debated
Information Distribution Platform Act (IDPA)
Designated large platforms must publish and apply content-removal standards, disclose moderation practices and meet response deadlines, overseen by the MIC, which has signed a DSA-enforcement cooperation arrangement with the EU.
Latest: Took effect 1 April 2025; MIC designated Google, LINE Yahoo, Meta, TikTok and X as large platforms on 30 April 2025. source ↗
Compare every jurisdiction
Japan is one of 30 non-EU jurisdictions we scored against the DSA. See them all side by side.