Japan's release of wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has unleashed a wave of misinformation, with AFP debunking false claims of a radioactive Pacific Ocean that have been viewed millions of times.
Some of the content has even been circulated by Chinese state media, including AI-generated images of a nuclear-powered Godzilla rising from the seas.
China has banned all seafood imports from Japan and condemned the release, which began last month, despite it being declared safe by the UN nuclear watchdog and other international experts.
Tokyo has said its citizens in China and businesses in Japan have experienced a spike in harassment, including a brick thrown at its embassy in Beijing.
From mutated monsters to a looming aquatic armageddon, AFP Fact Check has debunked some of the most widely proliferated claims arising from Japan's wastewater release.
- A radioactive Pacific -
Social media posts on TikTok, Weibo, Facebook and elsewhere shared a graphic with claims the wastewater would contaminate most of the Pacific Ocean within 57 days.
The posts, mainly from China and South Korea but also circulated within Japan, shared a graphic from the 2011 Fukushima disaster, when a tsunami knocked out three reactors in one of the world's worst atomic accidents.
A hashtag associated with the graphic on Weibo generated 700 million views, and the animation was shared thousands of times on other platforms.
The graphic was also used by Chinese state media, including CCTV...
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