ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to discuss how online criticisms in Web 2.0 challenge religious authority. We do this through analysing online criticisms of Sōka Gakkai (創価学会, hereafter referred to as SG) posted on the Japanese BBS (bulletin board system) “Ni-channeru” (ちゃんねる, hereafter, 2ch). We chose SG because, as we will describe later, it is not only the largest religious institution in Japan but is also the one most targeted in Japanese threads, blogs and videos on the Internet. We selected 2ch because it is the most famous and the biggest BBS in Japan, and as such provides a forum that appears to be representative of criticisms of SG on the Internet. Many threads about SG in 2ch criticise, and/or ridicule the group or aim to present it as a social problem. SG, as with new religions in general, has often been the target of negative portrayals in the mass media (see Chapter 1 and Dorman in this volume), and on one level one could consider the criticisms leveled at it in online forums such as 2ch to be an extension of this general tendency. However, as will be discussed later, there are differences between the criticisms that have appeared in such media as books, newspapers and magazines, and in messages on 2ch, and we will later comment on what such differences tell us about the nature and provenance of online criticism and about issues of authority in relation to the Internet.
