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JAPAN
Mar 18, 2021

Tokyo 2020 creative chief quits over Naomi Watanabe 'Olympig' pitch

Hiroshi Sasaki floated the idea of comedian Naomi Watanabe descending from the sky in porcine form during the opening ceremony, a magazine reports.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 9, 2021

Fifth of men think media reports about gender pay gap are 'fake news'

Efforts to close the gender pay gap risk stalling as countries recover from COVID-19, researchers said on Monday as a global poll showed almost a quarter of men thought the issue was "political correctness gone too far."
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 21, 2021

'No plan, no Q, nothing': QAnon followers reel as Biden inaugurated

In one Telegram channel with more than 18,400 members, QAnon believers were split between those still urging others to 'trust the plan' and those saying they felt betrayed.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 19, 2021

Chuck Mills, who inspired Japan's college football to flourish, dies at 92

The Chicago native brought Utah State and Wake Forest to Japan for exhibition games before taking local coaches under his wing in the United States.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 10, 2021

Apple and Amazon remove Parler after use in U.S. Capitol riots

Parler, which is popular with extremist groups seeking an alternative to more mainstream social media sites, has come under fire since the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jan 9, 2021

These are the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol

There were infamous white nationalists and noted conspiracy theorists who have spread dark visions of pedophile Satanists running the country. Others were more anonymous, people who had journeyed from Indiana and South Carolina to heed U.S. President Donald Trump’s call to show their support. One person,...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jan 7, 2021

Trump supporter rage simmered on social media before D.C. violence

In some of the more obscure corners of the internet, the calls for violence and revolution have been consistent in the months since Trump lost re-election.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 4, 2020

Twitter and Facebook suspend some accounts as U.S. election misinformation spreads online

Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. on Tuesday suspended several recently created right-leaning news accounts posting information about voting in the hotly contested U.S. election for violating their policies.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 29, 2020

How ‘Save the Children’ is keeping QAnon alive

The movement was hijacked by QAnon believers, who used it to spread false and exaggerated claims about a global child-trafficking conspiracy led by top Democrats.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 2, 2020

SoftBank Corp. climbs on news it will join parent on Nikkei 225

Shares of companies such as Kakaku.com Inc. and Zozo Inc. that had been touted as possible Nikkei additions fell.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2020

Working from home is terrible news for landlords

First there was the decline of the shopping mall, now it's the end of office working. It's tough being in commercial property.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2020

Good news: China is growing again; just don't ask how

Old drivers such as exports and infrastructure helped the recovery, but that challenges a long-sought shift toward consumers.
Reader Mail
Jul 3, 2020

Japanese news media biased against BLM

The Japanese news media has yet again disappointed me. Last week, they mentioned the recent increase in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. However, rather than addressing Trump’s problematic rhetoric (“There’s a spike in cases because we’re testing more, so we should test less”) or the rush to restart...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2020

On COVID-19 and protests, some good news

Minnesota, the epicenter of the George Floyd demonstrations, so far hasn't seen a much-feared spike in infections.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 18, 2020

Facebook says bug mistook legitimate news stories for spam

Facebook Inc. said a filter for combating spam on the social network was beset by a bug that mistakenly eliminated legitimate news stories and other posts, miscategorizing them as content that violates its rules.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 15, 2020

News outlets weigh whether new virus will affect Olympics

Since mid-January, the name on the lips of increasing numbers of TV news announcers and commentators has been "Bukan," which is how the Chinese city of Wuhan is pronounced in Japanese.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 18, 2020

Japan's news outlets take one step backward before moving forward

Before going forward into the new year, an extra edition of Shukan Shincho (with a Jan. 27 publication date) flashed back in time to track down author Ben Goto. Now a spry 89 years old, Goto achieved instant fame with a 1973 publication titled "Great Prophecies of Nostradamus." His book initially sold...
WORLD / Society
Dec 27, 2019

British authorities pick up 49 suspected migrants trying to cross Channel in small boats

British border and coast guard elements picked up 49 suspected migrants on Thursday as they were trying to cross the Channel from France in small boats, according to media reports.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 2, 2019

China seeks to root out fake news and deepfakes with new online content rules

Chinese regulators have announced new rules governing video and audio content online, including a ban on the publishing and distribution of "fake news" created with technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 14, 2019

Facebook removes 3.2 billion fake accounts and millions of child abuse posts

Facebook Inc. removed 3.2 billion fake accounts between April and September, along with millions of posts depicting child abuse and suicide, according to its latest content moderation report released on Wednesday.
A video circulating on Chinese social media depicting a "U.S. sweatshop"
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 18, 2025

Chinese vent anger at Trump's trade war with memes and mockery

Chinese online warriors have taken advantage of the massive strides in AI to create memes highlighting that many of the goods bought by Americans are made in their country.
A Japanese newspaper headline includes the word "tariff" in Japanese.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 9, 2025

Trump once called it his favorite word. Now, the Japanese version is all over the news.

Learning how to talk about tariffs, imports and exports is becoming increasingly necessary in everyday conversation.
Men read newspapers with front-page articles on the India-Pakistan conflict, in Amritsar, India, on May 8, a day after India launched strikes on Pakistan.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 13, 2025

No truce in India-Pakistan disinformation war

Platforms such as Facebook and X are still flooded with misrepresented footage of the attacks that killed at least 60 people and sent thousands fleeing.
AI hallucinations — when generative models fabricate information — are becoming more frequent, harder to detect and increasingly dangerous as we embed the technology deeper into society.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2025

AI hallucinations? What could go wrong?

The notion that we can’t ensure that AI will produce accurate information is, uh, “disturbing” if we intend to integrate that product so deeply into our daily lives.
Taiwan, under constant threat from AI-powered disinformation by authoritarian regimes, has emerged as a global leader in digital democratic defense.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2025

Taiwan provides a model for digital defense of democracy

As the U.S. and others struggle to confront AI-driven disinformation, Taiwan’s resilience has become its latest key export.
A measles alert sign is posted outside the entrance to the Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York in March.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

‘Alternative facts’ aren't a reason to skip vaccines

Donald Trump’s health officials have been endorsing alternative facts in science to impose policies that contradict modern medical knowledge.
First Lady Yoshiko Ishiba (center, in white and blue dress) hosts an event on Japanese culture with the first ladies of African leaders on the sidelines of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama on Aug. 21.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 27, 2025

Confusion over Japan’s ‘hometown’ plan overshadows African development event

Social media and news have focused more on the misinformation that Japan is accepting a large number of immigrants from Africa.
According to a survey by the Japanese Red Cross Society, over 25% of respondents in Japan saw or heard false news or information during natural disasters.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2025

Over 25% in Japan encountered false information during disasters

Nearly half of all respondents, 47.4%, were aware of Disaster Prevention Day. But 74.3% said they had never participated in local disaster response drills.
NASA says its satellite imagery shows the Earth is becoming drier — at least the parts where most people live.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2025

The Earth is drying out and we need to act urgently

Measurements from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites suggest the continents have been losing fresh water at an alarming rate since 2002.
U.S. President Donald Trump, in front of U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., delivers remarks linking autism to childhood vaccines and to the use of popular pain medication Tylenol for pregnant women and children — claims that are not backed by decades of science — at the White House in Washington on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 23, 2025

'I'm not a doctor': Trump's autism announcement gives COVID-19 flashbacks

The U.S. president's announcements linking a painkiller to autism ranged from unproven medical claims to self-proclaimed expertise.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building