Social Media and Elections: Politics Today / Voters in Japan Might Be Influenced by Biased Information Online; Ruling, Opposition Parties in Talks About Strengthening Responses

The Yomiuri Shimbun

1:00 JST, June 12, 2025

This is the second installment in a series that examines how political parties understand the confusion caused by social media during elections, which may undermine the basis of democracy, and how they are dealing with the challenges.

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“Take-home pay will end up increasing.”

This remark, made by Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council Chairman Itsunori Onodera, went viral on the social media platform X and was met with angry responses at the end of last year. Users posted such comments as “What’s so bad about take-home pay going up?,” “Stop talking nonsense, Onodera!” and “I wish the LDP would just go away.”

When Onodera was told about the uproar by a local supporter, he did not immediately understand what was happening and was surprised by what he saw online.

“That’s not what I meant, and it is spreading faster and faster,” he said.

Onodera made the comment on an NHK program in December 2024. However, he did not mean that an increase in take-home pay was a problem.

He was talking about it in the context of explaining that households with an annual income of ¥20 million or more would receive greater benefits if measures advocated by the Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) to address the “¥1.03 million barrier,” the threshold for taxable income, were implemented.

As a result of this experience, Onodera consulted with a lawyer about how to respond to such backlash on social media.

However, he realized that he just has to accept the situation for now, as responding with lawsuits, disclosure requests and other such measures would take time.

If something similar occurs during an election campaign period, it will likely affect voters’ decisions.

The ruling and opposition parties are carefully discussing how to strengthen their responses to unverified information on social media during election campaign periods. Such measures as identifying the owners of the accounts are expected and require immediate consideration, but it is difficult to prevent the sort of online backlash that happened to Onodera.

It can be said that candidates are competing to attract voters during an election, so the use of social media is helpful in that sense.

“To make sure voters can make their choice rationally, it is necessary to establish a system that makes it easy for them to see reliable information during elections,” said Tatsuhiko Yamamoto, professor of constitutional law and information law at Keio University.

Algorithms used by websites and platforms analyze each user’s browsing history and display information catering to their individual preferences. This kind of system is known as the “attention economy,” in which platform operators earn advertising revenue based on the number of views they receive.

Through the use of an algorithm, users can see information they are looking for without actively searching for it. If voters solely rely on the internet for information about who to vote for, the question will be whether the voters, who were surrounded with biased information, made their decision on their own.

In the 2024 U.S. presidential election, X owner Elon Musk was suspected to have influenced voters by changing the algorithm to promote claims made by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Social media platform operators should be required to provide information through mechanisms other than the attention economy during elections,” Yamamoto said.

At a press conference on May 27, DPFP leader Yuichiro Tamaki said: “We attach importance [to social media posts]. Each one is a valuable opinion.”

“No one knows what kind of algorithm is being used,” said Hiroshi Ogushi, acting president of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan. “I’m afraid that division will intensify and democracy will no longer function properly.”

Ogushi also calls for the consideration of establishing legislation to make social media platform operators take action.