Crown Prince Fumihito expresses support for disseminate information

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Crown Prince Fumihito expresses support for disseminate information

Crown Prince Fumihito, who turned 57 on November 30, expressed his support for information from the imperial family to be disseminated in a more timely and open manner to the public, possibly even on social media.

Fumihito stated at a news conference prior to his birthday that information will be communicated more straightforwardly if not released in an indirect way, as is the current practice through the Imperial Household Agency.

The crown prince said that consideration is necessary to disseminate information, including whether the agency's website is the appropriate place.

The information on the royal family is going to be released in a new arrangement from the next fiscal year.

Its ideas include communicating such information on social media platforms, renovating the agency's website and increasing staff to do these tasks.

During the news conference, Fumihito said that it is necessary to distribute accurate information about the imperial family in a timely manner.

He believes that enabling people to know where they can find accurate information about the family is important.

When asked about the possibility of imperial family members opening individual social media accounts to post information, he said, I probably won't do that, but I absolutely believe there is such a possibility. At the news conference last year to mark his birthday, Fumihito indicated that responses may be made against media reports about the imperial family that are not based on facts.

He said that certain standards are needed regarding such reports to determine when a response is warranted.

He said this year that establishing such standards is an issue for which consideration will continue.

When he tried to determine how much inaccurate information was included in a published article on the imperial family, he found that such a task requires considerable effort. He said that this experience taught him the difficulty of establishing certain standards and issuing a response against a media report based on them.

He said that he sometimes talks with his parents, Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko, when they go for a stroll in the Akasaka Estate, for example.

He said, Because they are nearly 90, I hope they spend their days looking after their health. He said he isn't currently talking about her marriage with his second daughter, Princess Kako.

He encouraged his son, Prince Hisahito, to visit various places in Japan and experience their culture firsthand, or to learn Japanese history through books or other medium.

He refrained from commenting on his eldest daughter, Mako, who married Kei Komuro a year ago, to respect her wishes that she doesn't want him to speak about her publicly.