Online Election Interference by Foreign Powers Raising Alarms in Japan, Which Plans to Bolster Defenses Against It

The Yomiuri Shimbun

20:00 JST, September 5, 2025

The government is planning to strengthen efforts to combat election interference conducted through social media by foreign powers, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

The collection and analysis of misinformation and disinformation has so far been conducted by individual government ministries and agencies. The government plans to establish a system through which these collection and analysis operations would be centralized under the deputy chief cabinet secretary, according to multiple government sources.

The government also will consider legal revisions to tighten relevant regulations, the sources said.

The Liberal Democratic Party’s Headquarters for the Promotion of a Digital Society compiled Thursday an urgent proposal that called on the government to implement comprehensive measures against “digital information interference,” including election interference. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi received the proposal Friday. Based on this proposal, the government will present a near-term policy designed to bolster countermeasures against election interference.

The government plans specifically to strengthen cross-ministerial measures that will be under the supervision of the deputy chief cabinet secretary.

As things stand, the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, the Defense Ministry and other government entities collate and analyze misinformation and disinformation, and the Prime Minister’s Office, Foreign Ministry and other entities have individually shared and transmitted messages to counter such false information. The government plans to centralize and strengthen this system.

Factors including the discovery that unnatural social media posts suspected to be election interference had been widely shared during July’s House of Councillors election campaign prompted the LDP and its ruling coalition partner, Komeito, to consider law revisions aimed at tightening regulations. The government also is set to prepare for steps such as amendments to the Information Distribution Platform Law, which sets procedures for social media platform operators to remove posts that contain illegal information and to suspend relevant accounts.

The government also will consider what form any additional regulations should take, while taking into account the “freedom of expression” guaranteed by the Constitution.

Alarm over social media’s role

The LDP’s digital society promotion headquarters’ proposal expressed a strong sense of alarm over “digital information interference” such as external election interference conducted through social media. In addition to calling for tighter regulations and stronger government systems for dealing with these issues, the proposal also urged closer cooperation with the private sector and other nations.

“The development of AI technologies has resulted in digital information interference being conducted in various situations,” LDP Policy Research Council Chairperson Itsunori Onodera said at a meeting of the headquarters Thursday. “This threat is becoming increasingly serious.”

Takuya Hirai, a former digital transformation minister and head of the headquarters, added, “If we don’t take countermeasures of some sort, democracy itself could be undermined.”

The proposal specifically called for the government to establish a stronger system to tackle such challenges; stronger, comprehensive information collection and analysis; and stepped-up efforts by social media operators to remove problematic posts and freeze accounts used for such posts.

On the issue of information collection and analysis, the proposal suggested the government cooperate with private-sector experts and think tanks to better grasp the true extent to which misinformation and disinformation created through artificial intelligence is being spread. This apparently was a nod to the threat posed by bots, which are automated software programs that boost specific claims by posting huge volumes of “quote tweets” and “likes” on social media. The proposal also recommended the government enhance cooperation with allies and like-minded nations.

The proposal urges that the Information Distribution Platform Law, which calls for responding to illegal or harmful posts, be revised to better combat inaccurate information on social media. Some LDP members have said that fundamentally dealing with the threats posed by artificial intelligence and bots will require amending the Public Offices Election Law, which sets rules for election campaigns.