False Tamaki Info Reposted Mostly by X Users outside Okinawa

Tokyo, Sept. 16 (Jiji Press)--Almost all reposts of an online post containing false information about Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki, who failed to secure re-election in Sunday's gubernatorial race, were made by social media users outside the southernmost Japan prefecture, an analysis showed Wednesday.

The false X post made at around 10 a.m. on July 26 claimed that Tamaki had decided to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in the Okinawa city of Ginowan to the Henoko coastal area in Nago, another city in Okinawa.

The post in question also claimed that the campaign against the base relocation was a publicity stunt orchestrated by Tamaki.

It was also structured, at first glance, to make it appear, with a photo, that Tamaki himself had described the relocation decision as a "brilliant decision."

The number of reposts stood at 54 in the first hour after the original post appeared on X, snowballing to over 1,300 reposts in three hours, over 3,600 reposts in six hours and over 9,000 reposts within 24 hours, according to a survey using social media analysis tool Brandwatch.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]