Fake news doesn’t need a newsroom – just misunderstanding, a smartphone and a little fear. That’s all it took in Japan last month when a harmless cultural exchange with four African countries morphed online into a supposed immigration free-for-all. The outrage went viral. The facts never stood a chance.

Announced at the ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development on August 21, the initiative, dubbed ‘Africa Hometown’, aims to foster ties through personnel exchanges and local events between four Japanese cities – Imabari, Kisarazu, Sanjo and Nagai – and the African nations of Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The four cities hosted their partner countries during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

But media coverage in some of the partner countries – and social media chatter referencing it in Japan – sparked an ugly backlash. Furious social media users spread false claims, prompting angry phone calls and emails to the Japanese cities caught in the crossfire.

In Tanzania, the respected Times newspaper ran a story headlined ‘Japan dedicates Nagai City to Tanzania’. The word ‘dedicates’ was translated on social media into the Japanese word sasageru, which can be interpreted to mean the city was being ‘sacrificed’ to Tanzania.

Over in Nigeria, the Office of the President issued a media release claiming that Japan will introduce a “special visa category for highly skilled, innovative and talented young Nigerians who want to move to Kisarazu (the city assigned to Nigeria as a partner) to live and work”.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) promptly requested Abuja to issue a new media release clarifying the visa issue. In its own statement, JICA emphasised that “there are no plans to take measures to promote the acceptance of immigrants or issue special visas for residents of African countries, and the series of reports and announcements concerning such issues are not true”.

But that was after hell had already broken loose on social media. “Nigerians are already enthusiastic and delighted about moving to Kisarazu City with their families, working there, giving birth in Japan, and so on,” one X user wrote, a post that garnered more than one-million views, according to an August 26 Japan Times report.

A day later, the UK’s The Guardian newspaper reported that an X post claiming that Kisarazu was “seriously considering handing over the city to Africans” attracted 4.6- million views.

The four cities have received thousands of complaints from confused residents, with a senior official in the municipal government of Sanjo telling the media that 15 city employees spent a whole day handling 350 phone calls and responding to 3 500 emails. For its part, Imabari fielded 460 calls and 1 400 emails from residents enquiring whether the city had adopted a new immigration policy.

What’s more, Google Maps entries were sabotaged, with Sanjo City Hall appearing as Ghana City Hall and Kisarazu City Hall as Nigeria City Hall, according to Japan Forward, an English-language news and opinion platform affiliated with a major national daily.

The ‘Africa Hometown’ debacle shines a spotlight on the rise of right-wing populism in Japan, tied to anti-foreigner sentiment. The populist party, Sanseitō, campaigning on a ‘Japan First’ platform, made substantial gains in Upper House elections in July, tapping into anxieties about immigration, tourism, cultural change and economic strain. This is despite the fact that foreigners make up only about 3% of the country’s population.

Responses from Japanese officials as the controversy raged carried a hint of capitulation to this sentiment. By declaring that “there are no measures to promote acceptance of immigrants or issue special visas”, JICA framed its response around preventing African immigrants rather than affirming the exchange’s positive purpose. Weighing in, the mayor of Kisarazu reassured the city’s residents: “It is not true that the city has requested to accept migrants . . . and the city has no plans to make such a request in the future.”

This language – clamping down on African migration – implicitly validates xenophobic anxieties instead of normalising intercultural exchange. Instead of celebrating connection, it emphasises the absence of African presence.

What happened in Japan wasn’t just a misunderstanding, but a masterclass in how fake news can sabotage diplomacy and amplify xenophobic anxieties already bubbling under the surface.