How to Remove Reviews and Negative Comments about Milk Cafes

Choosing a preparatory school is a challenging issue for students and their parents. Despite the considerable cost of attending these schools, factors such as the personality and ability of the instructors are often unknown until one actually attends. Students and parents grappling with these concerns often have a need to know about online reviews in advance. To meet this need, there is an anonymous bulletin board site called “Milk Cafe”. On Milk Cafe, anyone can view reviews of preparatory schools, cram schools, and their instructors from all over the country. However, due to the nature of being an anonymous bulletin board, Milk Cafe also contains many groundless defamations against schools and instructors. Therefore, it is a site that preparatory schools must closely monitor. In this article, we will explain how to respond when defamatory comments are posted on Milk Cafe.

Explanation about Milk Cafe

Milk Cafe is an anonymous bulletin board specialized in reviews for educational institutions such as cram schools. It was established in 2000 by Kensuke Furukawa, the founder of nanapi, and operates on a similar basis to the popular anonymous bulletin board 5channel (known as 2channel at the time). Specifically, numerous threads are created for each cram school and each instructor, and anonymous comments, known as responses, can be posted on each thread. It should be noted that the operation rights of Milk Cafe were transferred to Cybridge Corporation in 2009 (Gregorian calendar year).

What Kind of Reputational Damage Occurs at Milk Cafe?

At Milk Cafe, the ability to post anonymously often leads to numerous defamatory posts being made, naming specific prep schools and instructors. There are cases where threads are created solely for the purpose of defaming a specific prep school or instructor. Common defamatory posts seen on Milk Cafe include accusations such as “Instructor B at prep school A has hit a student” or “Instructor C is dating multiple female students”, which relate to troubles with prep school students. Particularly on Milk Cafe, persistent and malicious posts similar to those on 5chan are noticeable. Even if the content of the post is not true, viewers may assume that there must be some problem with the prep school or instructor if such rumors are circulating. Therefore, it is inevitable that these defamatory posts will fuel the anxieties of students and parents who see them, and it is easy to imagine that this could lead to reputational damage, such as an increase in students leaving the school or a decrease in new enrollees. Furthermore, if there are negative posts about an instructor, that instructor may end up under significant stress, and in some cases, may even be driven to resign.

How to Request Removal for Violation of Terms of Use

If you discover defamatory posts about prep schools or tutors on Milk Cafe, the first course of action you can take is to directly request the site operator to remove the posts on the grounds of violation of the site’s terms of use. On Milk Cafe, there are two ways to directly request the operator for removal. One is to post a removal request on the removal request bulletin board, and the other is to request removal through the inquiry form.

How to Use the Deletion Request Bulletin Board

The Deletion Request Bulletin Board can be accessed from the “Bulletin Board Category” on the left side of the Milk Cafe homepage. Click on “Operation & Management” to display the link.

The Deletion Request Bulletin Board operates in the same way as the regular Milk Cafe bulletin board. You can make a deletion request by starting a thread or posting as a response to an existing thread. Therefore, while it is not known who made the deletion request, it is possible for an unspecified number of people to view that a deletion request has been made. Consequently, it is not suitable for those who wish to make a deletion request in secret. In particular, if viewers realize that the person making the deletion request is the one who was defamed, it could lead to further flaming. Therefore, it is generally not recommended for the person in question to use the Deletion Request Bulletin Board. When posting a deletion request on the Deletion Request Bulletin Board, you need to include the following: ①Bulletin board name, ②Thread name, ③URL, ④Deletion request response number, ⑤Reason for deletion. For ⑤Reason for deletion, it is important to explain in detail why you believe it violates the deletion guidelines, which will be explained later.

How to Request Deletion via the Inquiry Form

At Milk Cafe, we have established a system where individuals who have been subjected to defamation can request deletion via our inquiry form. Therefore, if you, as the person in question, wish to request the deletion of a post, you should primarily use this method. At the bottom of our homepage, click on “Terms” to display the “Guidelines for Deletion”. Within the section titled “About Lawsuits, Trials, and Relevant Parties”, you will find a link saying “Click here for deletion requests from the individual or relevant corporation/company”. Clicking on this link will display instructions for direct deletion requests via the inquiry form.

As previously mentioned, if you, as the person in question, wish to request the deletion of a post, you should primarily use this method. At the bottom of our homepage, click on “Terms” to display the “Guidelines for Deletion”. Within the section titled “About Lawsuits, Trials, and Relevant Parties”, you will find a link saying “Click here for deletion requests from the individual or relevant corporation/company”. Clicking on this link will display instructions for direct deletion requests via the inquiry form.

As shown on this instruction page, you need to fill in the following details: ①Name of the person in charge, ②Phone number, ③Email address, ④Name of the bulletin board, ⑤Thread name, ⑥URL, ⑦Deletion request response number, and ⑧Reason for deletion. After filling in these details, click on “Contact Us” and send your request from the inquiry form that appears.

Just like when requesting deletion from the deletion request bulletin board, it is important to provide a detailed explanation in the ⑥Reason for Deletion section, outlining why you believe the post should be deleted in accordance with the deletion guidelines.

Deletion Guidelines

When requesting the operator of Milk Cafe to directly delete a post, it is necessary to state the reason for deletion in accordance with the deletion guidelines. The following criteria are provided for the deletion of defamation.

Verbal Abuse Towards a Specific Instructor

For instance, what if a review was made stating, “The instructor at A Cram School, Mr. Yama○○o, is a worthless and incompetent person”? Firstly, one of the requirements for a defamatory post to be removed on Milk Cafe is that the post allows for the identification of an individual. In this example, the name of the instructor in question is partially censored, but if there is only one instructor at A Cram School whose name starts with “Yama” and ends with “o”, then this kind of censorship still allows for individual identification.
Next, regarding the part that states “worthless and incompetent”, this falls under the category of “clear verbal abuse”, which is listed in the removal guidelines as a case for deletion.
Therefore, it would be appropriate to request deletion as it falls under “2. Contains information that can identify an individual employee/instructor” in the removal guidelines, and also contains “clear verbal abuse”.

Examples of Cases Where Deletion Requests are Made on the Grounds of Illegality

Defamatory posts not only violate the terms of use, but can sometimes be illegal. The main issue here is defamation. Defamation generally occurs when a fact that lowers a person’s social reputation is posted. However, defamation does not occur if the posted fact is true or if there is a legitimate reason or basis to believe it is true. We have explained the requirements for defamation in detail in the following article.

https://monolith.law/reputation/defamation[ja]

An example of a post on Milk Cafe that could potentially be defamatory is a review stating, “Instructor B of A cram school is making advances on multiple female students.” Since the majority of cram school students are minors, having a sexual relationship with female students is likely to violate the Youth Healthy Development Ordinance enacted by each local government. Violating this ordinance can result in criminal penalties, so the content of the post can be said to lower the social reputation of Instructor B. Therefore, if this review is baseless, there is a possibility of defamation. If a post on Milk Cafe is illegal, you can also request the site operator to take measures to prevent transmission based on the Japanese Provider Liability Limitation Act. A request to prevent transmission is a measure that brings about the same result as deleting a review. However, the decision to respond to a request to prevent transmission is made by the site operator who received the request. Therefore, depending on the judgment of the site operator, there is a possibility that no measures to prevent transmission will be taken.

Deletion by Provisional Disposition

If the operator of the Milk Cafe refuses to accept a direct request for deletion, it may be necessary to file a provisional disposition with the court to demand forced deletion. A provisional disposition is a simplified court procedure that usually concludes in about 1 to 2 months. If the court concludes that deletion is necessary through the provisional disposition, the operator will comply and remove the review. For more details on the provisional disposition for requesting post deletion, please refer to the article below.

https://monolith.law/reputation/provisional-disposition[ja]

Identifying Posters through Provisional Dispositions

At Milk Cafe, we frequently encounter defamatory posts that could potentially have a significant impact on the management of prep schools. In cases where malicious defamation is continuously posted, even if we delete the posts, new defamatory comments often reappear, creating a never-ending cycle. Therefore, it becomes necessary to identify the poster for the prevention of recurrence and to claim damages. The procedure to identify the poster is called a request for disclosure of sender information. In a request for disclosure of sender information, we first obtain the IP address and timestamp corresponding to the problematic review from the site operator. Based on this information, we identify the Internet Service Provider used for the post. Then, we request the disclosure of the poster’s personal information through civil litigation procedures from the Internet Service Provider. We provide a detailed explanation about the request for disclosure of sender information in the article below.

https://monolith.law/reputation/disclosure-of-the-senders-information[ja]

Summary

Given its nature as an anonymous bulletin board similar to 5chan, Milk Cafe can be considered a site where defamatory comments are relatively easy to post. There are also many posts that can lead to personal identification, so it is necessary for cram schools and instructors to immediately request the removal of problematic posts to prevent the spread of reputational damage. In order to quickly proceed with the removal request and the process of identifying the poster, we recommend consulting with a lawyer who has extensive experience in dealing with online defamation and reputational damage.