Photo/Illutration Mio Sugita, parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs and communications, at her inaugural news conference at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki district on Aug. 15 (Satoru Eguchi)

The Tokyo High Court on Oct. 20 ordered a ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker to pay damages to journalist Shiori Ito for “liking” a number of defamatory tweets posted against her.

In reversing a Tokyo District Court ruling in March, Presiding Judge Hiroshi Ishii ordered Mio Sugita to pay Ito damages of about 550,000 yen ($3,667) for liking the disparaging tweets. 

Sugita, parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs and communications, liked a total of 25 third-party posts on Twitter from June to July 2018 that slandered Ito.

The tweets included inflammatory comments such as “Ito screwed up sleeping her way (into a job),” “Ito set up a honey trap,” and “What Ito did is a publicity stunt.”

They were posted after Ito went public in May 2017 about how she suffered after she made allegations that she was raped by a former TV reporter.

In the lawsuit, Ito claimed Sugita’s act of repeatedly liking tweets that smeared her violated her honor because Sugita has an influential voice as a Lower House member and has many followers.

In March, the Tokyo District Court rejected Ito's claim.

The lower court said that liking tweets does not always show favorable or positive feelings about the content and is sometimes used for bookmarking.

The court also said that the target and degree of emotion cannot be determined, and liking of tweets remains an abstract expression that could be construed in multiple ways. 

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