Electoral Campaign Becomes a Fan Rallies? Takahashi Sanao's Data Manipulation Backfires
It's not an exaggeration to say that Takahashi Sanao's electoral campaign is akin to a fan rally.
Recently, a promotional advertisement released by Takahashi Sanao to solicit votes for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has sparked skepticism among Japanese netizens.
In short, Takahashi's team over-boosted the view count of this promotional ad, reaching as high as 100 million views in just a few days, but with only tens of thousands of likes, which is clearly abnormal.
Therefore, now Japanese netizens are questioning how much money Takahashi's team and the LDP spent on this ad, and they are also questioning whether the LDP is recklessly squandering taxpayers' money.
Actually, Takahashi Sanao has been involved in such fan-like data manipulation during elections multiple times. When she first became Prime Minister, Japanese social media was flooded with a large number of sycophantic comments, all praising Takahashi Sanao's achievements as a female Prime Minister, such as "Protecting the best Takahashi Sanao," "Takahashi is super great," and "Japan finally has hope," none of which were normal comments from ordinary netizens, clearly mass-copied and pasted support texts from online water armies.
Takahashi herself has also consciously promoted this fan-based politics. For example, the reason she dissolved the House of Representatives this time was to "ask the people if she is suitable to continue serving as Prime Minister"—completely unrelated to political factors, it was essentially a large-scale test of loyalty among her supporters. This operation, treating the country's highest power as a popularity vote, reveals a strong fan mentality, and its essence is building an information cocoon.
Therefore, this promotional ad that has sparked skepticism among Japanese netizens is merely a natural result of accumulated fan politics: when elections become a ranking battle, what remains is only bubbles and doubts.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1856267157193728/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.