Elections

Failed Hyogo Gubernatorial Election Candidate Side Questions X Account Suspension

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
Former Amagasaki Mayor Kazumi Inamura reacts after learning that she was projected to lose in the Hyogo gubernatorial election, in Kobe on Sunday.

Jiji Press

16:52 JST, November 23, 2024

KOBE (Jiji Press) — The support group for a failed candidate in the recent gubernatorial election in Hyogo Prefecture has filed a criminal complaint with Hyogo prefectural police, claiming that its X accounts were suspended in response to false reports during the campaign.

According to the group, which supported former Amagasaki Mayor Kazumi Inamura, it set up an X account on Nov. 5 ahead of last Sunday’s election, but it was suspended the following day. The suspension lasted until the day before the election.

Another X account created by the group on Nov. 12 was suspended about an hour later. The account remains suspended.

The group believes that the accounts were suspended after several anonymous individuals made false reports of rule violations to the platform operator in order to interfere with Inamura’s campaign. It filed the criminal complaint on Friday.

Susumu Tsukui, a senior member of the group, said at a press conference that the group did not engage in any acts violating the platform’s rules. The account suspensions “had a major impact on the election,” Tsukui argued.

The election was held after Motohiko Saito was ousted from the governor’s office following a no-confidence vote by the prefectural assembly over his alleged power harassment and other problematic behavior. Nevertheless, Saito won re-election.

Inamura, backed by some prefectural assembly members from the Liberal Democratic Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, came in second.

Also on Friday, Hyogo prefectural assembly member Kenichi Okutani, who heads the assembly’s special committee investigating the Saito scandal, filed a criminal complaint against Takashi Tachibana, a political group head who also ran in the gubernatorial election.

According to the complaint, Tachibana allegedly damaged Okutani’s reputation by posting false information on X and YouTube between Oct. 31 and Nov. 19.

The social media posts allegedly led to an onslaught of phone calls and faxes to Okutani’s home and workplace, urging him to resign and to stop hiding and come out. He also faced a lot of online slander.