Social media-savvy teens given chance to spot fake news in Japan election campaign

Social media-savvy, young swing voters are emerging as a key demographic for political parties and some digital platformers are trying to curb the adverse impact of disinformation and fake news on Generation Z by sharing tips ahead of Sunday’s general election.

Around 20 junior high and high school students participated in a recent workshop held in Tokyo designed to help them understand the importance of knowing where information comes from and accessing primary sources, as the emergence of deepfakes has made things complicated.

The participants, working in groups, discussed how to determine whether information is reliable, using real-life examples such as an image created by generative artificial intelligence, a composite made from multiple photos, and misleading edits and content. They also learned about the risks posed by fake accounts.

During the workshop, a lecturer asked the teenagers whether they noticed anything odd in an image showing a candidate giving a speech atop a campaign car in front of Shinjuku Station.

The seemingly authentic image was created by generative AI and included a misspelled station name and fake banners hung on a wall of a building.

“I couldn’t find any errors in those AI-generated images. It made me realize I may have overestimated my ability (to spot fake news),” said an 18-year-old high school senior, who is voting for the first time in Sunday’s general election.

“With the election approaching, I want to sort through information while fact-checking it,” she said.

According to a survey conducted by LY Corp., the operator of the Line messaging app and organizer of the event, 87 percent of the respondents said they believed they had seen and heard disinformation or misinformation while 54 percent said they may have been influenced by such information.

Some 88 percent pointed to a lack of efforts to raise awareness of, and provide information on, disinformation and misinformation.

Major political parties are scrambling to reach out to more voters in a short campaign for the House of Representatives election, capitalizing on the speed and reach of social media.

Winning the hearts and minds of unaffiliated voters is seen as critical in the race. Media polls show the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party is expected to win at least a majority of the 465 contested seats, while the opposition faces the challenge of expanding their support base.

Japan lowered the voting age to 18 from 20 in 2016, but turnout among teenage voters has tended to be lower than in other age groups.

While major parties count on the benefits of social media, they are also alarmed by their negative side. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has requested platform operators to respond swiftly if asked to delete harmful information in the run-up to the nationwide election.

“Fake news has become a social issue,” said Narumichi Oyama, a manager at LY.

“Although younger generations, including junior and senior high school students, appear adept at using social media and AI, it remains quite questionable whether education has kept pace with the growing influence of social media and the evolution of AI,” he added.

According to a 2025 survey by the communications ministry, to which around 2,800 people aged 15 and above responded, about half of those in their teens to 30s who were exposed to fake or false information in the past said they had shared it in some form with others.

“Most people vaguely know that fake news is terrifying and they need to be careful not to be misled, but relatively few students, particularly those in their teens, pursue the truth and verify (the information) on their own,” Oyama noted.

“As they will soon become voters and are expected to contribute to society, they should do so to filter out various noises and purely benefit from social media, the internet or AI,” he said.

© KYODO