Multiple news outlets fact-checked a viral image of a fake tweet by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about Hillary Clinton.
The viral image appeared on social media after Abe was shot and killed on Friday while delivering a campaign speech on the street in Nara in western Japan. The purported tweet was made to look as though it came from an account with the Twitter handle “@ShinzoAbe,” was sent hours before the assassination, and featured Japanese characters with a supposed Google translation to English reading, “I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton.”
The Associated Press delivered a “false” rating to this image.
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“Abe did not tweet this statement, which is a reference to a long-running internet meme,” the Associated Press report said, referring to the “Clinton Body Count” conspiracy theory meme. “A screenshot purporting to show the tweet has been fabricated. Abe’s verified Twitter account uses a different username and profile picture than the ones shown in the altered image. The Japanese text in the altered image does not mention Clinton, either.”
Reuters dealt the same verdict. “There is no evidence that the message depicted in the image came from an account owned by Shinzo Abe,” the report said.
Further, the alleged English translation of the Japanese tweet did not match, according to Reuters, which noted that the actual translation reads: “As I mentioned before/once again, me.”
Abe, who was Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, was shot as he was delivering a speech ahead of an election Sunday for the House of Councillors, the upper house of Japan’s Parliament. Abe was taken to the hospital, where doctors tried to save his life, but he was declared dead at the age of 67 several hours after the attack.
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Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old from Nara, was arrested at the scene of the shooting, and authorities said he confessed to killing Abe with a homemade gun. Yamagami told investigators he believed Abe was tied to a religious group that he blamed for his mother’s financial ruin, according to Reuters.
Clinton, a former secretary of state and U.S. senator, was one of many who expressed sorrow after Abe’s killing. “Prime Minister Abe was a champion of democracy and a firm believer that no economy, society, or country can achieve its full potential if women are left behind,” she said in a tweet. “I am shocked and devastated by his assassination — a loss for Japan and our world.”
