Millions of tweets from citizens blasting a bill allowing the Cabinet to delay retirement of top prosecutors are being snubbed by the Abe administration and ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who are more intent on questioning the numbers than responding to the concerns.

Tweets bearing the hashtag “I protest the proposed revision of the Public Prosecutors Office Law,” posted the night of May 9, went viral, hitting 6 million to 7 million in days.

Among them were tweets posted by a slew of celebrities, including actors and manga artists. Numerous news media organizations reported on the astounding number of tweets in opposition to the revision bill.

At the center of the contentious legislation is a special provision allowing for an extension of the mandatory retirement of top prosecutors if the Cabinet deems it necessary.

Critics argue the provision will undermine the independence of prosecutors, who have the authority to indict politicians, if the Cabinet can decide on their retirement arbitrarily.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came under fire earlier this year after allowing Hiromu Kurokawa to remain as chief of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office after Kurokawa turned 63, the mandatory retirement age for his post under the current law. This is the nation's first case for any prosecutor whose mandatory retirement was delayed.

Kurokawa is widely believed to be close to the Abe administration and the retirement extension is expected to pave the way for him to be promoted to the post of public prosecutor general, the most senior position for a prosecutor.

Asked about the tweets at a Lower House plenary session on May 12, Abe said, “I refrain from commenting on various opinions on the internet on behalf of the government.”

An aide to the prime minister questioned whether the number of tweets were actually in the millions.

“That amounts to one in 20 Japanese posting a tweet,” the aide said. “It is almost impossible.”

A senior government official also brushed off the tweets, saying, “I feel no groundswell of public opinion whatsoever.”

Hiroshi Moriyama, chairman of LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee, told reporters he is aware that a large number of voters are now interested in the proposed legislation.

“But there is no way to know for sure that there were in fact 6 million tweets,” Moriyama said.

An examination of tweets posted against the legislation, however, appeared to confirm the figure.

Fujio Toriumi, an associate professor of social systems engineering at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Engineering, examined 4.73 million tweets in depth, including retweets, posted from 8 p.m. on May 8 to 3 p.m. on May 11, to determine how many tweets and retweets were posted by each Twitter account.

In response to the claim that the millions of tweets were generated by a limited number of people, Toriumi said, “My analysis showed that the claim is wrong.”

About 588,000 Twitter accounts were involved in the tweets against the bill, he said.

Toriumi ascertained that spread of retweets from 12,000 accounts, or 2 percent of the 588,000, represented half of the total tweets with the hashtag protesting the legislation.

About 80 percent of the 580,000 accounts posted tweets with the hashtag 10 times or less.

His analysis also found few signs of tweets being spread through Twitter bots and turned up only a handful of spam posts.

Despite many celebrities raising objections over revision bill, ranking LDP officials are confident that the debate will not derail the legislation. 

One reason behind the LDP’s confidence is that the Cabinet's approval ratings have not dropped in the most recent opinion polls.

The LDP seeks to pass the legislation through the Lower House by the end of this week, while the opposition bloc is adamantly opposed to it.

On May 12, Yukio Edano, head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, denounced the administration and the LDP for ignoring the avalanche of tweets at a news conference streamed by leaders of opposition parties.

“It is an insult to the citizens who have raised their voices,” he said.

Kazuo Shii, chairman of the Japanese Communist Party, called on more voters to tweet their opinions to help sway politics since protest rallies are not permitted while Japan is under a state of emergency to combat the new coronavirus.

Ryosuke Nishida, an associate professor of sociology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, said such a barrage of tweets is unparalleled in recent years.

“It came to the attention of many after a slew of artists and TV personalities, who usually shy away from making comments on politics, weighed in and responded to the issue while the public faces strong constraints due to the coronavirus pandemic," Nishida noted.

(This article was compiled from reports by Tatsuro Kawai, Hiroki Koizumi, Yuichi Nobira and Chihiro Ara.)