Final week, a racist joke originating from a shitty nook of the web acquired shortly out of hand, and earlier than lengthy French politicians and Greek information channels—amongst others—have been erroneously reporting that an outdated {photograph} of legendary recreation designer Hideo Kojima was truly a photograph of Tetsuya Yamagami, the 41 year-old who assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday.
I say “joke,” however that’s actually doing a disservice to issues which can be even remotely humorous, since there was completely nothing linking the 2 males, by way of look or in any other case, aside from the actual fact they have been each Japanese.
In case you’re simply becoming a member of this, right here’s Zack reporting the information on Friday:
Shortly after right this moment’s assassination, some shitty individuals in a dank nook of the web joked that Abe’s suspected killer regarded like Kojima. Finally, this reached Twitter, the place far-right French politician Damien Rieu—maybe not understanding that it was a joke—retweeted photographs of Kojima with a remark that interprets to “The acute left kills,” serving to unfold it extra. Whereas Rieu did finally delete the tweets, it appears the injury was already performed and may need helped mislead no less than one information station in Greece that lined the assassination.
Clearly that’s extremely harmful reporting by the Greek TV station, particularly because it issues somebody already within the public eye, so Kojima Productions issued an announcement on Friday night saying:
Kojima Productions strongly condemns the unfold of faux information and rumors that convey false info. We don’t tolerate such libel and can take into account taking authorized motion in some circumstances.
Far-right French politician Damien Rieu has since deleted his tweets, and the Greek information channel ANT TV1 has additionally eliminated its video that includes the {photograph}. It’s unknown at time of posting, nonetheless, simply how far this misinformation has unfold, and the way many individuals noticed the unique experiences from each and have but to see any of the corrections made.
