In recent years, Chinese nationalists have launched massive online trolling campaigns against those they regard as Beijing’s political foes, including Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters. Other Chinese netizens criticized the online abuse and called for an end to it, but they were also attacked. The nationalist sentiment against Japan has often flared, due to deep-rooted rancor against Japan’s invasion of China in World War II. The attacks and harassment are emblematic of the rising tide of ultranationalism sweeping through social media in China, which has silenced many of the country’s more liberal and moderate voices online. Hashimoto later changed the privacy settings on Instagram, so he could no longer be tagged on the platform – but angry comments have kept pouring in under his posts. Some of the accounts attacking Hashimoto appeared to be created specially for this purpose, with their entire feeds filled with posts targeting the Japanese gymnast. Some even tagged him in photos of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many called Hashimoto Japan’s “national humiliation,” while others accused him of stealing China’s gold medal. Chinese nationalist trolls circumvented the Great Firewall and descended on Hashimoto’s Instagram account, inundating his feed with angry comments and tagging him in insulting posts.
The anger, first set off on Chinese social media, soon spilled over to platforms typically censored in China. At just 19 years old, Hashimoto is the youngest gymnast to ever win the event.Īs Japan celebrates his victory, some in China questioned the fairness of the result and accused the judges of favoritism toward the hosts by allegedly inflating Hashimoto’s score on the vault.
On Wednesday, Japan’s Daiki Hashimoto won gold in the men’s all-around gymnastics final, edging out China’s Xiao Ruoteng by 0.4 points. And that’s raised temperatures on social media. Some of Japan’s victorious Olympic athletes have been subjected to a storm of online abuse from Chinese nationalists following the defeat of their Team China opponents in Tokyo.Īs of Friday afternoon in Japan, China and the hosts occupied the top two places in the medal table, with a number of events pitting Chinese athletes directly against their longtime rivals for places on the podium.
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