Japanese Lawmaker Ordered to Pay Damages to Journalist Over Tweet ‘Likes’

Japanese journalist Shiori Ito speaks outside a Tokyo court on Dec. 18, 2019, after hearing the ruling on a damages lawsuit by her, accusing a former TV reporter of rape. In this case, the court awarded her 3.3 million yen ($30,000). Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

A Japanese court on Thursday ruled in favor of a journalist who sued ruling party lawmaker Mio Sugita for liking several tweets that she claimed were defamatory to her, the first such verdict in Japan.

Tokyo High Court ordered Sugita to pay 550,000 yen ($3,660) in damages to Shiori Ito, a journalist and an icon of Japan’s #MeToo movement, for liking defamatory posts from other users on Twitter, Kyodo News reported.

Ito had sued Sugita for 2.2 million yen ($14,640) for liking defamatory tweets about her, claiming that the Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker’s actions offended her dignity considering her prominence and large Twitter following.

The Tokyo District Court had previously dismissed Ito’s lawsuit in March on the ground that liking a tweet does not necessarily imply approval of the content as it might be used for bookmarking purposes.

But the Tokyo High Court overturned the ruling, saying that Sugita’s liking of defamatory tweets was done with the intent of hurting Ito’s dignity, considering her past criticism of Ito.

The court ruled that such “acts of contempts” by a House of Representatives member with large Twitter following “exceeded the socially-acceptable limit, and the mental distress caused by it cannot be taken lightly.”

“[The court] understood my suffering. I want [Sugita] to think about how small actions can hurt people,” Ito was quoted as saying by Kyodo News.

Liked 25 Tweets

Sugita, a vice minister for internal affairs and communications in the Japanese parliamentary, allegedly liked a total of 25 tweets containing derogatory remarks about Ito in 2018, The Asahi Shimbun reported.

The tweets were related to Ito’s rape allegations against Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former Washington bureau chief for the Tokyo Broadcasting service, in 2017. Yamaguchi was a biographer of assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Ito became an icon of the #MeToo movement in Japan after going public with her case.The Supreme Court ordered Yamaguchi to pay 3.3 million yen ($21,941) in damages to Ito as it found that he had nonconsensual sexual intercourse with Ito while she was intoxicated in 2015.

Sugita criticized Ito in a BBC documentary in 2018 stating that her alleged rape was the result of “clear errors on her part as a woman [for] drinking that much in front of a man and losing her memory.”

“If you’re working as a woman in society, you'll be approached by people you don’t like. Being able to properly turn them down is one of your skills,” she said in the interview.

Sugita later clarified that her remarks referred to “something different,” The Mainichi reported.