Viral false claims about quakes, Hiroshima expose Japan’s online conspiracy problem

Two outlandish claims that gained large audiences online in Japan recently have “shocked” misinformation experts, who say conspiracy-style narratives are feeding on disaster anxiety, fading wartime memory and an online information ecosystem that rewards outrage and suspicion. In the aftermath of the July 28 earthquake in Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan, a social media user claimed that seismic data from the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience showed the tremor was “not an earthquake but an artificial explosion waveform”. The post, published about 30 minutes after the magnitude 7.1 quake, was later listed by Yahoo Japan’s real-time search as a popular post, with more than 2,100 reposts and 6,300 likes. Other posts pushed a related claim that the quake had been triggered by HAARP, a research facility in Alaska that has long been a target of disaster-related conspiracy theories.

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“Both the theory that the earthquake was artificially triggered and the denial of the atomic bombings lack scientific basis, but the contexts in which these conspiracy theories take root differ,” said Yuzuru Kido, a former J-CAST News deputy editor and internet media researcher who tracks Japanese social media discourse.

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Conspiracy theories long predate the internet and are not exclusive to Japan, Kido pointed out, but years of observing the country’s online space had left him concerned that such claims were becoming easier to revive and circulate.