Last week a racist joke that originated in a dark corner of the internet quickly got out of hand, and before long French politicians and Greek news channels – among others – mistakenly reported that an old photo of legendary game designer Hideo Kojima was actually a photo of Tetsuya Yamagami, the 41-year-old who assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday. I say “funny,” but that really hurts things that are even remotely funny, since there was absolutely nothing connecting the two men, appearance-wise or otherwise, other than the fact that they were both Japanese. If you’re just joining in, here’s Zack reporting the news on Friday: Shortly after today’s murder, some lousy people in a dark corner of the internet joked that Abe’s suspected killer looked like Kojima. Eventually, this made its way to Twitter, where far-right French politician Damien Rieu—perhaps not realizing it was a joke—tweeted images of Kojima with a comment that translates to “The far left kills,” helping it spread further. While Rieu eventually deleted the tweets, it appears the damage was already done and may have helped mislead at least one news station in Greece that covered the assassination. Obviously this is incredibly dangerous reporting, especially given that it involves someone who is already in the public eye, so Kojima Productions released a statement on Friday night saying: Kojima Productions strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information. We do not tolerate this type of defamation and will consider legal action in some cases. Far-right French politician Damien Rieu has since deleted his tweets, and Greek news channel ANT TV1 also removed its video of the photo. It is unknown at the time of posting however how far this misinformation has spread and how many people saw the original reports from both and have yet to see any of the corrections made.
