{"id":79636,"date":"2026-08-25T00:23:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/79636\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T00:23:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T00:23:30","slug":"viral-false-claims-about-quakes-hiroshima-expose-japans-online-conspiracy-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/79636\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral false claims about quakes, Hiroshima expose Japan\u2019s online conspiracy problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two outlandish claims that gained large audiences online in <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/japan?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Japan<\/a> recently have \u201cshocked\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">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 \u201cnot an earthquake but an artificial explosion waveform\u201d.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The post, published about 30 minutes after the magnitude 7.1 quake, was later listed by Yahoo Japan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Days later, as Japan marked the August anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the end of World War II, NHK reported that false claims denying the atomic attacks were gaining traction online, with some posts on X and TikTok drawing more than 1 million views and one YouTube video claiming the bombing was a lie attracting more than 300,000 views.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Doves are released over the Peace Statue during a ceremony to mark the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing at the Peace Park in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on August 9. Photo: Kyodo\/AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/60ea35ba-699e-420b-a403-18c8521895e6_32afda76.jpg\" title=\"Doves are released over the Peace Statue during a ceremony to mark the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing at the Peace Park in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on August 9. Photo: Kyodo\/AP\"\/>Doves are released over the Peace Statue during a ceremony to mark the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing at the Peace Park in Nagasaki, southern Japan, on August 9. Photo: Kyodo\/AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cBoth 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,\u201d said Yuzuru Kido, a former J-CAST News deputy editor and internet media researcher who tracks Japanese social media discourse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two outlandish claims that gained large audiences online in Japan recently have \u201cshocked\u201d misinformation experts, who say conspiracy-style&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14757,2330,27486,45408,6985,12218,50977,8,50978,6298,2328,12429,50975,261,50976,6075],"class_list":["post-79636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-alaska","tag-atomic-bombings","tag-gunma-prefecture","tag-haarp","tag-hiroshima","tag-hokkaido-bunkyo-university","tag-j-cast-news","tag-japan","tag-japan-airlines-flight","tag-kumamoto-prefecture","tag-nagasaki","tag-nanjing-massacre","tag-national-research-institute-for-earth-science-and-disaster-resilience","tag-nhk","tag-smartnews-media-research-institute","tag-world-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79636","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=79636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}