Earlier this week, a 41-year-old man named Tetsuya Yamagami shot dead the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a political rally with a handmade firearm. As the news reverberated through social media – and, subsequently, national television stations – photographs of Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima were falsely attributed to the assassin. Kojima Productions has now spoken out against the spread of “fake news” and has suggested it may take legal action.
“Kojima Productions strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information,” a statement said. “We do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some cases.”
The real irony here is that 2001’s Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty – arguably Kojima’s most famous game – was all about misinformation in the digital era, and now he finds himself a victim of it.
[source twitter.com, via resetera.com]
Comments 45
That is seriously messed up ...
It really is disturbing that the first thing that some people think upon the assassination of someone is how to crack a joke about it. Have we really become so desensitized to it all?
MGS2 is becoming real.
Seriously though I don't blame Kojima's studio for threatening legal action.
Legal issues need to be taken against any organization or individual that spreads this level of libel. The unfortunate part is that the world is so used to the constant waves of lies from so many sources spreading the same lies in tandem that people have their entire worldview based on lies. They essentially live the lie never knowing that it is actually a lie.
Hopefully Kojima is able to get passed this unscathed given that the real assassin has been taken into custody.
@ATaco I don't think this was a joke. The "journalists" who did this just didn't care enough about the identities of these Japanese men to use the images of the right one.
It’s being seen in countries all over the world. Crazy how quickly it can spread now. I just have no clue why these journalists aren’t taking the 5 seconds to make sure they’re showing a picture of the right person.
Shameful. There's simply no excuse for such a mistake to happen. It's as simple as that and KP has every right to be upset at such nonsense.
Also RIP to Abe. Very sad to see this news.
@get2sammyb
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty is about is about misinformation in the digital era.
Sons of the Patriots (not to be confused with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots) isn't a subtitle in the Metal Gear franchise.
@Ron22 Haha, fixed, thanks. I always get those two subtitles confused.
@Uncharted2007 It's so ridiculous these days that non-gullible people are an endangered species. The populace gaslight you for not believing the lies. You have grandparents forwarding any stuff they come across on WhatsApp. 😆
Yet another example of why there’s no hope for the human race.
The irony of fake, damaging information being spread about the main man behind MGS2 is too much to process.
Thats crazy. Kojima productions should take legal action.and r.i.p. to the former Japanese prime minister shinzo abe.word up son
It's amazing just how MGS2 was so far ahead of it's time as well as Hideo Kojima. It's like Kojima either predicted or knew the way the world was headed even as far as 20 years ago.
Surprised you allowed comments on this article tbh. Usually stuff like this gets muted.
For as tragic as this whole situation is I can’t help but laugh at it. Like, why blame Kohima in the first place, makes no sense.
We’re already well past 1984 levels of crazy here on planet eARTH and the media picking up every piece of garbage that appears on the internet sure doesn’t help
@nessisonett shouldn't be hard to verify what they are putting out but nowadays, with many outlets, it's about being the first to get the story out, the facts can wait.
Sorry state of affairs.
@SplooshDmg don’t say that to your self.We cannot do anything about it because there are two different person or people in this world the Good,Evil or some lost their way remember no one is/nobody’s perfect and Rest In Peace to the former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe.
Saw this over on r/MetalGearSolid earlier today and while had a quick gag, I felt really bad for Kojima-san. It's really messed up that the very topic he used to talk about 20 years ago now has come to hurt him in this way. Truly shows that nobody listens to cautionary tales. People only see Raiden doing naked cartwheels, I suppose. sigh.
@ATaco I don’t personally think it has anything to do with being desensitised, it’s got everything to do with the anonymous safety net that social media brings. You get people saying things they would never say in public scenarios yet behind a screen with fake names they say the most nastiest things. It brings detachment, a trait and double edged sword that is social media.
@Uncharted2007 I get what you mean but what sources can you get the "truth" from? I can't think of a single news outlet that hasn't been called out for lying at some point in all my life.
@z0d15g0d well just like with proper science, good journalism should be based on a defined standard, ethics and fact checking, but even sound science is only valid until refuted. If a news outlet can list proper sources (plural!), rather than a few tweets and hearsay… I think you're pretty well off.
Of course within gaming fake news doesn't have as devastating consequences as in political issues, but gaming sites sure love to throw some ***** around.
Btw... my cousin's roommates friend who interns at Sony said that a state of play is happening next week 😁
@z0d15g0d There isn't a single source. You have to research, use logic and sense. I'd recommend getting the same story from multiple perspectives and glean an idea of what actually occurred or is happening.
Misinformation is inevitable. You can't do anything to stop it, you will probably get tricked, and it doesn't even need to start from a credible source. People have been doing this with Sam Hyde's picture for a decade now with shootings.
Best thing you can do is take everything you see with a grain of salt, don't spread any information you get through social media, and probably don't even engage with it because of how engagement works through a social media algorithm.
But, it is still inevitable. Even if an algorithm steps in and starts monitoring for misinformation...what would be considered misinformation to that algorithm? Don't trust what you see on your screens, at least not fully.
[Removed - inappropriate]
@jrt87 Agreed. I've been off social media for about a year and a half now.
@Jireland92 fr it's much of the same old stuff really. And folks are acting shocked 😂
It takes being a prized struggle and grunt to even try to link a God like Kojima to this.
A horrible event and there are people bringing sadness to inocent individuals by spreading lies. Being just a mistake of the journalists is not an excuse for this. It is unacceptable.
What a ridiculous story lol. Like anyone would believe Hideo Kojima was responsible. The internet is such a weird place.
Life has become too fast for peoples brains to process. And unfortunately I don’t see any sort of slow down. Maybe one day the media will be held accountable for not doing their homework. But in the meantime they rarely get any consequence
@ATaco I don't have sympathies for the victim myself but this is still a shocking news that can lead to nasty developments down the road, and spreading rumours like this can actually get more people hurt or even killed in real life. Some unhinged extremist can easily take such speculations to be fact and start attacking people he judged to be guilty, and the rest will be history.
@jrt87 you don’t like the smell of gas ?!?
@tameshiyaku You'd best not be fake newsing me with that final comment lol.
@Uncharted2007 That's what I typically do but sometimes there's just so much noise to filter though I just end up not caring about the subject anymore. Can't even look forward to AI being honest as they will probably be corrupted out of the box.
The world has become distorted. This will become the new normal.
@z0d15g0d AI is already corrupted. It's taught by the corrupt. Nothing to look forward too honesty-wise there.
Kojima should sue them and I hope he wins every single case.
@z0d15g0d
I think a good principle is always to check the primary source. A lot of the press quote (or misquote) secondary source when they don’t straight copy paste what other colleagues posted (or worse: they quote Twitter celebs as primary) without even checking themselves.
Usually good sites post the primary source link that unfortunately you have to check being the only way even if it takes time.
Sometimes it can be daunting and a good example was the Cerny road to ps5 that many reporters, I believe, couldn’t take the time to listen many times to understand but instead just quoted Digital Foundry/ Eurogamer which was full of misinformation.
Here the mistake is quite obvious and shocking so it’s easily noticeable.
@Jireland92
I think it started as a bad joke from an individual and some (obviously ignorant) power influence of politics and media jumped on it.
@JJ2 Being able to check the primary source would be the best option to get to the truth but in most cases that's just not possible. Especially so when it comes to the high priority topics and events going on in the world. Too many times we've just had to "take their word for it" only to end up finding out it was a lie from the start. Usually once the damage has been done and so much time has passed that the only people crying out for and care about justice are just those directly affected. And the outlets don't get any flak at all.
@Uncharted2007 yea
Go get em Kojima, no one can't just accuse the legend of that and get away with it.
@z0d15g0d
Oh yes. I was just limiting my comment to gaming news. World more serious news is another approach definitely as you need to have a bigger picture instead of looking through a microscope so to speak
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