“Infection” A man shed with information about a lie “I felt afraid of spreading” March 9 17:48
A man from Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, who spread information about the new coronavirus "I am infected" on the Internet, told a NHK interviewer, "I felt very scared because the information about the lie was spreading more and more. "
Mr. Toshimasa Kobayashi (46), who runs the home building company “Kobayashi Soken” in Matsumoto, was given the lie information.
In Nagano Prefecture, it was confirmed on 25th last month that a male 60-year-old company officer living in the jurisdiction of the Matsumoto Public Health Center was infected with the new coronavirus.
According to Mr. Kobayashi, shortly after that, the information that this infected person was Mr. Kobayashi began to appear on the Internet.
Even just by Mr. Kobayashi's confirmation, there was information such as "It is Kobayashi Soken who has an infected person" or "It seems that the president and his wife were infected."
At first, Mr. Kobayashi did not take the lie information seriously because no one was infected in the company and the infected people were in their 60s and 46 years old.
However, since there were many inquiries from business partners, he consulted with a lawyer and considered how to deal with it.
On the 2nd of this month, the company posted a statement on the company's website stating, "The gossip that our employees are infected with coronavirus is not true."
Later, the same content was advertised in free papers distributed in Matsumoto City and local newspapers on August 8, and the information was denied again.
At the moment, there is no impact on management, but Mr. Kobayashi said, "I was very scared of the situation that the rumors were spreading with the tail fins and I could not control it. I know, there's no way we can spread the hoax, and we want to make sure that we know what is right and what is lying. "