As the world reels from the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at least one politician has decided to blame famed video game director Hideo Kojima.
In a now-deleted tweet, French politician Damien Rieu replied to a tweet accusing “The extreme left” of killing the former Japanese PM, attaching photos of the Death Stranding director.
The tweet has since been deleted, but anyone on the Internet knows that means nothing since you can always screenshot someone to have their stupid mistakes framed on a wall.
As it should be, one Twitter user has made sure to display the moment for all to see:
In a now deleted tweet, French far-right politician Damien Rieu accused the far-left of murdering Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and used photos of game developer Hideo Kojima instead of pictures of the current suspect Tetsuya Yamagami pic.twitter.com/2zpmL5kVnD
— Nox 🐸 (@NoxDawn) July 8, 2022
Of course, this wasn’t just one moron’s faux-pas. News networks like ANT1 News also ran with the story, with some Twitter users reporting that they’d seen the game director’s name trending following the mistake.
I cannot believe a far-right French politician tweeted that Hideo Kojima assassinated the prime minister of Japan and news channels are actually running with it. Holy shit pic.twitter.com/CVK8SI442I
— Cian Maher (@cianmaher0) July 8, 2022
Rieu has seemingly read the room and apologized after taking the tweet down, claiming that he got his information from “a joke” and proceeded to blame literally anyone else for the slip-up.
“I naively mistook a joke for information. I didn’t think it was possible to make humor out of a man’s murder but I was wrong not to check before sharing.
My apologies to #HideoKojima and the fans of #MetalGear”, he says in a tweet.
Part of the backlash comes from how simple it would have been to not make the mistake- Shinzo Abe ‘s killer was literally on camera killing the former PM and arrested afterward, so it’s obvious that he went after Hideo Kojima simply because he’s the most famous person to look vaguely similar.
Kojima himself has not commented on the matter, though he did share some merch from The Boys that he received in the mail.
UPDATE: Kojima Productions has said they are looking into taking legal action, calling the claims “libel”.
#KojimaProductions strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information. We do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some cases. pic.twitter.com/fDi0FR9kB0
— KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) July 9, 2022