With New Ito Shiori Lawsuit, Japan’s Troll Backlash Continues

Gavel
Ito Shiori's lawsuit against people who have defamed her on social media is part of a growing trend in Japan aimed at quelling hate speech online.

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I’ve talked recently about how the death of Kimura Hana has sparked a movement against online harassment in Japan. Yesterday, a prominent figure continued pushing that movement forward by launching a lawsuit against those who denigrated and viciously attacked her online.

Shiori Sues Those Who Subjected Her to a Second Rape

Ito Shiori after winning her lawsuit
Ito Shiori after winning her lawsuit. (Picture: Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images)

Journalist Ito Shiori accused another journalist, Yamaguchi Noriyuki, of raping her in 2015. Yamaguchi is a politically connected friend of Japan’s current Prime Minister, Abe Shinzo; Yamaguchi even wrote a biography of Abe.

What happened next is what Ito would later describe as a humiliating experience in which police not only doubted her but made her relive the attack using a mannequin. Yamaguchi was never charged for the rape. Undeterred, Ito filed – and won – a 3.3 million yen civil lawsuit against Yamaguchi. (Yamaguchi denies he did anything wrong and is appealing the verdict.)

Ito’s verdict was fought on two fronts: both in the courts and online. On Twitter and elsewhere, diehard supporters of Yamaguchi (and Abe) worked overtime to paint Ito as a manipulative woman who slept with Yamaguchi voluntarily and then turned on him when he wouldn’t help her career. One of these people, illustrator and self-declared “satire cartoonist” Hasumi Toshiko, even made a widely-distributed cartoon that drove this point home. In the cartoon, a flush-faced Ito is texting Yamaguchi about returning his shirt in the morning. On the left hand side of the illustration in large letters are the words 枕営業 (makura eigyou), or “sleeping your way to the top.”

Many of Ito’s defenders charged that this campaign was equivalent to a “second rape”: detractors were trying to tear apart Ito’s reputation for daring to speak up.

Ito agreed – and she’s not standing for it. This week, she launched a defamation lawsuit against Hasumi and two others for creating and distributing the image. In her lawsuit, she’s asking, not just for damages, but for the image to be deleted and for a formal apology. The lawsuit is remarkable in that Ito is not just suing the creator Hasumi, but two others who were responsible for re-tweeting the image and helping it go wide.

伊藤詩織さんが、はすみとしこさんら3人を名誉毀損で提訴。リツイート者も対象

インターネット上で事実に基づかない誹謗中傷の投稿により精神的苦痛を受けたとしている。

(JP) Link: Ito Shiori Sues 3, Including Hasumi Toshio, for Defamation of Character. Targets Re-Tweeters as Well

Ito’s declaration was met with a wave of support online. Supporters used the hashtag “I Support Ito Shiori” (#私は伊藤詩織氏を支持します) to lend their voices to Ito’s effort to hold Net trolls accountable. Even several celebrities, such as the author of the manga Chihayafuru, Suetsugu Yuki, lent their support, with Suetsugu even contributing an illustration to the cause. (The picture below replaces one Suetsugu first posted of Ito Shiori herself; she took that post down out of fears around making a single person an icon of a movement that involves and affects many women.)

末次由紀 on X (formerly Twitter): “この呟きの本意は、この程度いいだろうと誹謗中傷する私達自身が、弱さと邪悪さと向かい合う契機となることを願ってのものです。#わたしは伊藤詩織氏を支持します 点在するネガティブな視線に晒されながらも不当を訴える女性が、その先に明るい世界と多くの味方を見ることができるように願っています。 pic.twitter.com/iosc7QJ9Pq / X”

この呟きの本意は、この程度いいだろうと誹謗中傷する私達自身が、弱さと邪悪さと向かい合う契機となることを願ってのものです。#わたしは伊藤詩織氏を支持します 点在するネガティブな視線に晒されながらも不当を訴える女性が、その先に明るい世界と多くの味方を見ることができるように願っています。 pic.twitter.com/iosc7QJ9Pq

Who is Hasumi Toshiko?

For her part, Hasumi seems unrepetant. In fact, she’s even made the controversial image in question her Twitter cover page banner.

This is, sadly, par for the course for Hasumi. The author is a prominent right wing voice in Japan who’s no stranger to controversy. She’s a vocal denier of “Comfort Women,” the women in Korea raped during by Japanese soldiers during World War II. Hasumi sides with right-wing historical revisionists in Japan arguing that the women were all prostitutes who slept willingly with Japanese soldiers.

Hasumi is also staunchly anti-immigrant and has spoken out numerous times against zainichi Koreans, or ethnic Koreans living in Japan. In 2015, she created controversy when she used the photo of a six-year-old Syrian girl as the basis of an anti-immigration poster. Hasumi gave the girl in her drawing a sly, calculating grin, accompanied with text about how she was going to become a refugee so she can “eat gourmet food…at other people’s expense.” Hasumi ultimately took the picture off of Facebook, where she had posted it, but remained unapologetic about the message.

Is this manga cartoon of a six-year-old Syrian girl racist?

After thousands signed a petition urging Facebook to remove an allegedly racist cartoon, the artist decided to remove the picture.

Hasumi has also received a ton of backlash recently on Twitter for comments regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. In a series of tweets, she contended that Black people in the US were like zainichi Korean in they had “once” suffered discrimination but now “have an edge” and can get away with crimes that white people get charged for. (Thankfully, many people – both Japanese and non-Japanese – piled into the comments to chide her for her ignorance.)

Unseen Japan on X (formerly Twitter): “”As a result [of past discrimination], black people in the US now have an edge. A black person will be overlooked for committing the same crime that gets a white person arrested.”お前。。。何もわかっていないよね、本当に。 https://t.co/Mdrm6iNM4X / X”

“As a result [of past discrimination], black people in the US now have an edge. A black person will be overlooked for committing the same crime that gets a white person arrested.”お前。。。何もわかっていないよね、本当に。 https://t.co/Mdrm6iNM4X

The Issues Involved in Taking Trolls to Court

It’s too early to tell whether Ito’s suit will be successful. However, it’s not the only war she’s fighting. In a discussion with the founder of the #KuToo movement, Ishikawa Yumi, Ito discussed how news of Kimura Hana’s death led her to file her lawsuit in the hopes that she can transmit some of what she learns about the process to others.

https://mirror.asahi.com/article/13431000
(JP) Link: Ito Shiori & Ishikawa Yumi: “People Who Hurt Others Should Quit Social Media. Don’t Take This From Us”

In the wide-ranging discussion, both Ito and Ishikawa note the legal and financial barriers to suing people for online defamation. Ishikawa remarks that it takes between USD $5,000 and $6,000 to find the true identity of a person involved in a single incident of online slander. And, Ishikawa notes, lawyers only get about 10% of the total award, which doesn’t amount to much of a legal fee.

For her part, Ishikawa talks about starting a Web site where people who are victims of defamation can help one another. “But it’s possible such a site will be used to focus more damage on people,” she says, “so I’m still considering it. I want to move as quickly as possible to assemble this information.”

With Kimura Hana’s death, the word 指殺人 (yubisatsujin; “finger-killer”, or “keyboard assassin”) has entered the Japanese lexicon as people argue about the best way to tackle this growing problem. Lawmakers have talked vaguely about strengthening Japan’s slander laws; however, there appear yet to be no concrete improvements on the table. Which means that, in the meantime, it’s up to activists like Ito, Ishikawa, and many others to do what they can within the existing legal framework.

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