This article originally appeared in East Asia Forum.
By Kyoko Kuwahara, May 26, 2025
Though Japan has begun government-wide efforts to counter foreign disinformation, including developing countermeasures and cooperating with international bodies, it has given less attention to domestic disinformation which has historically been a more prevalent issue. Japan needs to take a ‘whole-of-society’ approach, partnering with the private sector, media, academia and civil society, and adopting more proactive, prebunking approaches both nationally and internationally.
Though disinformation is not a new threat, the diversification of stakeholders in the digital space and emerging technologies have transformed the information environment, forcing democracies to grapple with growing disinformation challenges. While trying to develop disinformation countermeasures — particularly regarding perceived foreign threats — Japan needs to shift its focus and collaborate more effectively to mitigate disinformation risks.
It has taken many years for Japan to engage with this issue, in large part because it has yet to face cases in which foreign disinformation campaigns that have had a serious impact on elections or society. Japan has tended to be relatively immune to the serious impacts of foreign disinformation campaigns given its unique language barrier and relatively high level of trust in the traditional media, leaving little room for foreign media to infiltrate its information environment.
Since it approved a National Security Strategy in late 2022, the Japanese government has been implementing a government-wide effort to counter disinformation. The strategy includes a policy to bolster the government’s ability to respond to information warfare by foreign actors in the cognitive domain by aggregating and analysing information on disinformation originating abroad, strengthening external communications and enhancing cooperation with non-government actors under a new government structure.
But significant disinformation incidents have generally had domestic origins. Japan is a disaster-prone country, making misinformation and disinformation in times of natural disasters a serious problem. From the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 to the Noto Peninsula earthquake on New Year’s Day in 2024, a wide variety of misinformation and disinformation caused confusion in disaster-stricken areas.
Despite such experiences, Japan has been slow to develop effective countermeasures and many of its responses have largely focused on foreign campaigns — in line with the priorities outlined in its National Security Strategy — despite the dominance of domestic disinformation cases.
There have been a number of wake-up calls leading to the Japanese government’s introduction of disinformation countermeasures, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Former prime minister Fumio Kishida later stated that ‘Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow’. But the release of treated water into the ocean through the Advanced Liquid Processing System from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in August 2023 may have also been a major factor in the government’s decision to introduce disinformation countermeasures. China strongly condemned Japan’s release of treated water and conducted information operations, which included false claims of ‘radioactive water’ and ‘nuclear-contaminated wastewater’ to try to damage Japan’s international reputation.
It is encouraging to see that the government has recognised that disinformation is a security threat and has begun work to mitigate its effects. The government also engages in international cooperation with other democracies, especially with the G7 through the Rapid Response Mechanism, the European Union under the EU-Japan Security and Defence Partnership and NATO through strengthening strategic communications to counter foreign information manipulation and disinformation.
But this government-led approach is problematic in several respects. The countermeasures focus heavily on foreign disinformation campaigns, even though disinformation with domestic origins appears to create more serious social challenges.
Tokyo also overemphasises the debunking approach, which is easier to strategise and implement in a short period of time but less effective in mitigating disinformation risks, while the preemptive ‘prebunking’ approach, which aims to prepare audiences to recognise and resist disinformation before it spreads, has been given less consideration. A lack of successful examples of prebunking may have led practitioners and experts to be sceptical about its efficacy, particularly given that it requires medium- to long-term efforts. Alternatively, given the growing global emphasis on the importance of prebunking, practitioners and experts may not be sure how this approach could be implemented in Japan due to a lack of understanding of the information ecosystem in their target audiences.
Cooperation between the government and the private sector, media, academia and other civil society organisations is also extremely limited. Japan needs to accept that the government alone cannot address disinformation. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has started engaging in public–private partnership projects. It announced a Digital Positive Action project in January 2025, which includes 19 private sector organisations and aims to improve information and communications technology literacy among users to counter online misinformation, disinformation and defamation. But these initiatives are limited and a whole-of-society approach has not yet emerged.
Japan should mobilise more players in combatting disinformation and incorporate more proactive measures, both domestically and involving international actors who could share experience, knowledge, analysis and good practices. Considering the dramatic dismantling of disinformation countermeasures that has begun in the United States, international cooperation which does not rely on US support is increasingly important. Japan will need to find reliable collaborators in the Indo-Pacific region and Europe.
By leveraging international relationships, partnerships with non-government actors and prebunking methods, Japan can improve its capacity to address disinformation from both foreign and domestic sources.
Kyoko Kuwahara is Research Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs and Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
