False videos claim foreigners steal metal from Japanese railway tracks

An investigation by Constella Security Japan Inc. revealed that a series of social-media posts falsely portraying foreigners taking metal from railway tracks in Japan have amassed roughly 4.3 million views on platforms such as X, YouTube and TikTok. The video actually originated from an Arabic-language Instagram post uploaded overseas in August of the previous year and had no connection to Japanese railways. Japanese users replaced the original Arabic text with Japanese captions that accused foreigners of metal theft, a narrative amplified by accounts known for anti-foreign-worker messaging, one of which has 70,000 followers.

Ryuna Nagamine, an analyst at Constella, described the tactic as adding misleading explanations to unrelated footage to bolster a preconceived claim. The spread of this disinformation follows earlier false allegations of foreign-linked theft after major earthquakes in 2011 and 2024, and it has resurfaced amid one outlet national election cycle. Officials and NGOs are urging the public to verify video content independently before sharing.