Misreading
Something that uses facts to create a false impression in the recipient of information. This category includes instance that state facts, but manipulate the reader's impression of them through the use of expressions, or lead the reader to believe false facts. It is not completely fake news because it does not directly use untrue or false information, but it is an item to be aware of in that readers are likely to be misinformed.
Japan case
“Misleading" is basically a judgment for each recipient of information who reads an article, even if the content of the article is designed to manipulate impressions. Therefore, it would be difficult to show whether an article is really misleading or not without taking a time-consuming method such as surveying the opinions of many people. There have probably been many misleading articles created and causing damage, but for that reason, there are few articles that can be clearly said to be misleading. This is one of the rare cases where the word "misleading" is specifically used and clearly condemned.
< A case in which a large corporation directly accused a reporter of misleading an article that raised concerns among customers. >
A complaint by a company or individual whose topic is covered in an article to the content
of the article or to the company that wrote the article. At least in Japan, we see and hear
about such things on a daily basis in the news, and there have been many occasions when
such things have been done. However, it is rare for a company to mention the person who
wrote the article, or an individual within the company, so it can be said that the article was
one of the few cases that strongly aroused the ire of the company.
“Rakuten gave customer information to exhibitors... at 10 yen per case even after declaring
the cancellation.”(cited from "livedoorNEWS")
Ten years ago, the Yomiuri Shimbun published an article in the newspaper with this title.
Rakuten, a company that deals with Internet shopping, extracted personal information such
as customers' credit card information and e-mail addresses through its website and
provided it to other companies. Rakuten, a company that deals with Internet shopping,
extracted personal information such as customers' credit card information and e-mail
addresses through its website and provided it to other companies. That's what the article is
about. In that article, the author, a newspaper reporter, calls this case problematic. In fact,
from reading this article, our subjective impression is that Rakuten is extracting information
from its customers without their permission, which can be taken as committing some kind of
fraud.
However, this story does not end so easily. Indeed, it is an indisputable fact that
Rakuten has recovered personal information from its customers. However, all Rakuten was
doing was providing information that was handled in a limited and strict manner to nine
companies with unavoidable circumstances. At the very least, we can see that the impression that Rakuten had committed fraud was false. In the first place, Rakuten has
posted a warning to Internet shoppers on its website, and the impression that the company
is extracting information from its customers without their permission was completely wrong
and was due to misleading. Of course, the impression that extracting information from its
customers without their permission is a subjective statement, and there is no evidence of
such a fact in the article, nor is there enough evidence to conclude that it is a text that
facilitates misreading. Still, there were protesters who say that this article is the kind of
article that makes many people feel that way.
Abroad case
Fake news can sometimes be created unintentionally. And with that possibility comes the need to determine whether or not the information was created with malicious intent. Misleading information is particularly difficult to identify because it is based on facts and can change the way you look at the news, depending on whether it was just made up with inadequate words or whether it was created from the beginning with the purpose of manipulating the impression of the recipient of the information.
< A case where the actual actions of an aircraft carrier differed from those announced by a US spokesman. >
In general, it is unlikely that a "national" announcement is even slightly laden with lies,
i.e., fake news. The announcement has been carefully thought out by many people, and
there is no reason to lose the trust of the people or other countries, and above all, there is
no reason to lie. Therefore, no one would doubt the announcement. However, even such
announcements from the state can be unintentionally perceived as fake news, especially if
they are misleading. And misreading from a "state" that is believed to be right can have
many repercussions.
About four years ago, the U.S. Navy announced that the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson
had been ordered to sail north from Singapore to the Western Atlantic. At the time, North
Korea was showing signs of conducting a nuclear test, which was interpreted as the US sending the Carl Vinson to put pressure on North Korea, causing tensions around the
Korean Peninsula. In fact, the president at the time, Trump, made a statement suggesting
this. However, contrary to that announcement, the Carl Vinson then headed for Indonesia,
the opposite direction of the Western Pacific, and remained in the Indian Ocean for a while.
In response, public opinion criticized the announcement as fake and malicious, causing
misleading. In fact, many articles on the Internet at the time expressed that opinion. In
many of those articles, it is said that the US made the announcement intentionally and
maliciously to cause misleading. However, as I mentioned at the beginning of this article,
the item "misleading" is one of the most difficult fake news items to determine whether it
was made maliciously or not, and even more difficult to determine whether it is misleading
or not in the first place. In fact, it is certainly easy to take the announcement as a sign that
the Korean Peninsula is on its way, but as the spokesman claimed, there is also no doubt
that everything announced is true. However, there is no doubt that the announcement
confused many people, whether by design or not, and should have been avoided if at all
possible.
Summary
As mentioned in the explanation with examples, the most distinctive feature of the item "misleading" is that it is difficult to identify. It is impossible to determine whether there is malicious intent or not, or whether the article is misleading or not, because judgments vary depending on the subjectivity of the individual, and most importantly, because in many cases the person is not lying. Therefore, there are some articles that are called misleading, but the boundaries between them are vague, and there are some that have little impact or damage. However, there are still some recipients of information who suffer a great deal of damage, so it is definitely an act that should be avoided as much as possible by those who disclose information. In addition, there are misleading news with little impact and damage, and there are news with great impact. Sometimes, such news can be misleading to the point of causing so much anger among many people and large organizations, as in the case of Japan, that both the disclosing and receiving parties need to be careful.