Groundless rumors and slander related to COVID-19 have been spread in online forums and on social media, sparking discrimination and prejudice against people who have nothing to do with the coronavirus.
"It is certain that [the one who was infected is] the grandchild of XX shop," said an anonymous post on a message board, using the shop's actual name. This was immediately after the Fukushima prefectural government announced on April 2 that a teenage girl had been infected, without giving her name. Similar posts trying to identify the girl were posted one after another.
The post was groundless. However, the store named online suffered a decline in sales to half the usual level in April, with a constant stream of people calling the store and peeping into its windows.
The 67-year-old woman who runs the store told The Yomiuri Shimbun: "I have no idea why my shop was named, and I was too scared to go outside. It's terrible that anyone can spread false rumors so easily." She said she has not recovered from the shock.
The Fukushima prefectural police identified the poster and arrested a male company employee from Sukagawa in the prefecture in late May on suspicion of defamation and fraudulent obstruction of business. According to sources, the man told investigators, "I thought I would share detailed information that I had learned," and "I heard the name of the store from some gossips in my company." The man told the police that he had never met the shop owner.
The Mie prefectural police sent papers to prosecutors earlier this month on a man and woman in their 20s for libel after they allegedly tweeted rumors with the name of a Chinese restaurant in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture, saying that an employee there was infected with the virus.
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