Senior members of the nation\u2019s Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces have opened accounts on X, formerly Twitter, to counter China\u2019s cognitive warfare by disseminating accurate information quickly.<\/p>\n
In an unusual move for Japanese defense personnel, ministry spokesman Kimihito Aguin created his X account on June 26. One week later, top uniformed officer Gen. Hiroaki Uchikura, chief of staff of the ministry\u2019s Joint Staff, opened his X account.<\/p>\n
Both accounts have attracted more than 30,000 followers.<\/p>\n
They opened the accounts after a series of China\u2019s one-sided claims. In a post immediately after launching his account, Aguin rejected the Chinese Defense Ministry\u2019s criticism of Japan for what it calls a new militarism, stating, \u201cIt contains claims not based on facts.\u201d He later posted English and Chinese versions of his comment.<\/p>\n
Uchikura has been more restrained, often citing posts from the official X account of the Joint Staff and providing supplementary explanations. His posts include videos of ships and aircraft participating in multilateral exercises and a photograph of a scene in which a letter of appreciation was given to a naval officer who served as a defense attache at the Australian Embassy in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
In light of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, the SDF recognizes the importance of addressing cognitive warfare, which is conducted through disinformation and impression manipulation to influence people\u2019s judgment, steer public opinion and divide society.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we just remain silent, even lies can come to be considered the truth,\u201d Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament, on Thursday.<\/p>\n
While the ministry and the SDF have their official social media accounts and websites, a ministry official said, \u201cIncreasing channels to provide correct information is significant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAn environment allowing swift responses is also necessary,\u201d with the spread of disinformation accelerating amid advances in artificial intelligence technology, the official added.<\/p>\n
Professor Takahiro Tsuchiya of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies highlighted the importance of immediate rebuttals and regular dissemination of information in dealing with cognitive warfare.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to keep building a reputation that the information from the Defense Ministry and the SDF is reliable,\u201d Tsuchiya said.<\/p>\n
Regarding the efforts of the chief of staff and the spokesman, Tsuchiya cautioned against \u201ccarelessly disclosing sensitive information or internal decision-making processes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior members of the nation\u2019s Defense Ministry and Self-Defense Forces have opened accounts on X, formerly Twitter, to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,360,15348,8,33,2303,1240],"class_list":["post-60727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-china","tag-defense","tag-fake-news","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-sdf","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}