Hideo Kojima’s gaming studio has issued a response after fake posts circulated on social media and the media mistakenly identifying Kojima as the assassin of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In a tweet, Kojima Productions says it “strongly condemns the spread of false news and rumors that transmit false information” and that “it will consider taking legal action in some cases.”
On Friday, a man shot Abe during his speech at a political campaign rally. Police captured the shooter at the scene, who was later identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, 41.
Shortly after the incident, an Internet troll on 4chan posted a racist image linking Kojima’s face to that of the shooter (via PCGamer). Another user responded to the post with three additional images of Kojima showing the designer of Metal Gear and Death Stranding wearing a Soviet cap, as well as posing with images of Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara.
French comedian Georges Jordito again shared these images on Twitter as part of a now-deleted “satirical” post saying the culprit was Japanese football star Keisuke Honda. However, Damien Rieu, a French far-right politician associated with the country’s nationalist movement, took it seriously and tweeted images of Kojima with a text translated into: “The far left kills.” As Vice pointed out, the images were collected by the Greek and Iranian media who used the images by mistake in their coverage of the murder.
The Greek news channel uses images of Hideo Kojima with a Soviet ushanka, a Joker T-shirt and next to a photo of Che Guevara, saying he is the killer of Shinzo Abe !? pic.twitter.com/JiwZKtA7pJ
– The Kavernacle (@TheKavernacle) July 8, 2022
Since then, Rieu has deleted his tweet and apologized to Kojima, noting that “I naively took a joke for information.” The Greek media, which included an image of Kojima in a broadcast, removed its YouTube segment, while the Iranian newspaper has also corrected the image it used in its report.