Did you know that Japan smartphones come with an odd feat?

Jul 21, 2015 14:37 GMT  ·  By

You probably already knew this, but this blog will reaffirm your belief - Japan is plain weird. Forget about their creepy noodle commercials or downright scary cat-like reactive ears which measure your brain waves and listen to this.

According to a topic on Reddit, all smartphones with cameras sold in Japan don’t allow users to turn off the camera shutter sounds. Which means that when you’re snapping a picture everyone around you will hear it.

It’s not such a big deal, but maybe at some point you might want to snap a picture of your little kitten peacefully sleeping on the couch without waking it up. Well, in Japan you can’t.

What’s the reason for this, you might wonder. I have one word for you - perverts. Japan cannot trust people not to shove their phones up some poor girl’s skirt to snap pictures.

Even if it sounds creepy, “upskirting” is slowly becoming a thing in Japan. Filming and taking pictures up the skirts of high school females has long been making headlines in the country, and there’s even a subgenre of magazines for folks who are into this sort of thing.

Since the law is pretty skittish on the matter, Japanese smartphone manufacturers are trying to counter the movement by not allowing users to turn off the shutter sounds. Nonetheless, I am not entirely sure this is putting “excited” folks off.