This week the former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe was assassinated after being shot at a political rally, which shocked the Japanese people and some members of the gaming community who remember him for having dressed up as Mario at the closing of the Olympics of the 2016. However, some media defamed hideo kojimapinpointing him as the murderer.
French politician Damien Rieu and some news outlets smeared Hideo Kojima by using his photographs in discussing Shinzo Abe’s murder and not those of the main suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami. In his post, the French politician said that “the extreme left kills”, but it didn’t take long for him to delete it and post an apology realizing his mistake.
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“I naively took a joke as information,” the politician said in his apology, explaining that “I didn’t think they would do humor about the murder of a man but I was wrong not to check before sharing. My apologies to Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear fans.” Apparently, images circulated on social networks comparing the resemblance between Kojima and Yamagami, which caused misinformation.
It didn’t end there, as some news networks showed pictures of Hideo Kojima discussing the assassination of Shinzo Abe, such as one in Greece and one in Iran. This caused Hideo Kojima to trend yesterday, with over 35,000 tweets discussing the incident.
Although Kojima Productions did not initially acknowledge the situation, this morning they published a statement through their official Twitter account, where they said that the company condemns the spread of false news and rumors that seek misinformation. “We do not tolerate such defamation and we will consider taking legal action in some cases,” the statement said.