Following the recent assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, fake reports have circulated on social media and news outlets misidentifying Hideo Kojima as the killer. Hideo Kojima’s game studio, Kojima Productions, has released a response to these accusations.
In a Twitter post, Kojima Productions says it “strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information” and “will consider taking legal action in some cases.”
#KojimaProductions strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information. We do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some cases.pic.twitter.com/fDi0FR9kB0
— KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) July 9, 2022
Recall last Friday, a man shot Shinzo Abe during his speech at a rally as part of a political campaign. Police detained the shooter at the scene, later identified as 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami.
Shortly after the incident, an internet troll on 4chan posted a racist image that links Kojima’s face to that of the shooter. Another user responded to the post with three additional photos of Kojima, showing him wearing a Soviet hat with earflaps and also posing with images of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara.
French comedian Georges Giordito later posted the images on Twitter as part of a “satirical” post (currently deleted) that said Japanese soccer player Keisuke Honda was the culprit. However, far-right French politician Damien Rieu, who is associated with the country’s nationalist movement, took this seriously and posted images of Kojima on Twitter with the text “The far left is killing”. These images were then picked up by Greek and Iranian news outlets, who mistakenly used them to cover the assassination of Shinzo Abe.
Rieux subsequently deleted his tweet and apologized to Kojima, noting that he “naively mistook a joke for information.” The Greek edition, which included the image of Kojima in the broadcast, removed its video from YouTube. The Iranian newspaper also corrected the image it used in its report.
Source: The Verge
