TOKYO - Videos falsely portraying foreigners as stealing metal from railway tracks in Japan have spread widely on the country's social media, apparently to suggest foreigners are a threat to public safety, an investigation by a Tokyo-based cybersecurity company showed Saturday.
According to Constella Security Japan Inc., social media posts with descriptions such as "metal theft" with attached footage from old videos apparently filmed overseas had received roughly 4.3 million views on X, YouTube and other platforms by Sept. 15.
One X post in March was labeled "metal theft by foreigners" and "stealing metal from railway tracks," accompanied by footage of people who appeared to be foreigners taking away cable from tracks. Posts using the same video were also found on TikTok.
Constella found that the footage matched a video posted on Instagram in Arabic overseas in August last year. It had circulated mainly in Arab countries and was unrelated to railways in Japan or theft.
Posts that spread in Japan since March this year had replaced the Arabic text with unrelated Japanese descriptions, leading the company to conclude that it was false information.
An analysis of accounts in Japan that circulated the information showed that many had earlier posted messages opposing accepting foreign workers. One account had 70,000 followers.
Ryuna Nagamine, an analyst at Constella, said the latest case uses "a typical tactic of creating false information by adding explanations to unrelated...
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Videos falsely portraying foreigners as stealing metal from railway tracks in Japan have spread widely on the country's social media, apparently to suggest foreigners are a threat...