Unfounded rumors have a nasty habit of spreading through social media when a natural calamity strikes, usually to the detriment of a minority group that has done nothing wrong.

Such was the case in the Noto Peninsula region in the aftermath of the magnitude-7.6 temblor that hit on New Year’s Day. Two days later, a rumor was rife that a group of Chinese were riding around in a van on a robbery spree.

By early February, the Ishikawa prefectural police still could not confirm that any such crime had occurred.

Retracing how the information spread led to a man in his 40s who headed a branch unit of a local volunteer fire brigade. The man agreed to be interviewed by The Asahi Shimbun.

He was at his wife’s family’s home in a different municipality when the quake struck.

After spending the night in his car, the man returned to his own hamlet. He had been busy pumping water for use in the toilet at home where the water supply had been cut off. He also checked on the safety of neighbors.

Suffering from a lack of sleep and feeling dead tired, the man encountered a middle-aged woman around 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 3 at the evacuation center where he was staying.

She told him: “A group of Chinese appear to be using a small van to commit robbery. I want you to pass on this information and patrol the area.”

With roads rendered unpassable by the quake, the man highly doubted that a van from outside the area had managed to enter the community. But he was also worried in case the information was legitimate.

He sent a message to a group on the Line free messaging app that asked the other members to quickly spread the word about Chinese robbers in a small van.

He patrolled the neighborhood with other members of the fire brigade and kept a hammer and a crowbar from the tool box near the driver’s seat just in case.

But they did not spot any suspicious characters.

After completing a 30-minute patrol and returning to the brigade station, a fellow member realized the original message on Line had spread through X, the service formerly known as Twitter.

Although a member posted a correction late on Jan. 3, the original message kept spreading.

A woman in her 30s living in Ishikawa Prefecture received a message on the Line app from a friend around 10:15 p.m. on Jan. 3. The friend asked that a message be passed on. The woman was hesitant after seeing the words Chinese and robbers on the photo that had been attached. But she copied the message and posted it to her own X account.

The photo was the original Line message sent by the head of the fire brigade branch unit. But it also included a new photo of a silver van and a photo of a license plate of what was described as a “suspicious vehicle.”

The woman deleted the message the next day after realizing it was not based on solid information. She has become more careful about spreading such messages.

“I made the first post with a feeling of wanting to do what I thought was right by transmitting the message,” the woman said. “I realized how weak human psychology was.”

The branch unit leader said, “I felt a need to urge others to be cautious even if it might have been a lie, in order to protect the community. I was not in a situation to make a calm decision. I hope to not spread information in the future that I cannot confirm as based on fact.”

Unfounded rumors have spread in past natural disasters.

In the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, a false rumor took hold that Korean nationals were poisoning water wells and looting homes across Tokyo. Vigilante gangs were formed and scores of Koreans were murdered.

PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND RUMORS

Hiromichi Nakamori, a professor of natural disaster information studies at Nihon University, noted that rumors invariably take root due to “subliminal worries” about the situation people are facing, coupled with a lack of reliable information.

Not being able to continue living in one’s home heightens this concern, especially when information from local authorities and the mass media does not trickle down to its intended audience in a timely manner.

Anyone who is a party to such a rumor will likely worry more if they don’t pass on the information. Sharing the rumor with others helps to bring some relief, Nakamori said.

He also explained that certain patterned messages emerge during natural disasters, such as foreign nationals going on a crime spree or predicting other quakes in the area.

Nakamori said being aware of such past rumors will help make people more aware of the danger of repeating unsubstantiated gossip.

(This article was written by Jin Hirakawa and Takuro Negishi.)