You Don't Have to Mistake Online Abuse for Public Opinion: How 0.5% of Voices Can Fill the Entire Internet

The other day, I came across a news story reporting that so many foreigners wanted to take a Japanese-language proficiency test that organizers were struggling to keep up with demand.

Japanese is not a global lingua franca like English. Even so, large numbers of people from overseas are willing to spend time studying it and even sit for an exam.

Japan’s economy is stagnant, its population is shrinking, and there is little upbeat news to go around. So I simply felt grateful that people were still interested in Japan and willing to learn the language.

Perhaps they simply need the qualification for a work visa. Even then, they are making an effort through legitimate channels.

But when I opened the comments, I found an entirely different Japan.

“Foreigners don’t need to come to Japan.”

“Don’t bother learning Japanese. Just go back to your own country.”

People who left more positive comments were even met with responses like, “Say that after you’ve been the victim of a crime committed by a foreigner.”

Wait a minute.

Why put foreigners who are going out of their way to take a Japanese-language proficiency test in the same category as foreigners who commit crimes in Japan?

Once you lump them together like that, it is no longer a discussion. You are seeing nothing but the label “foreigner.”

Reading a comments section like this can create the illusion that everyone in Japan hates foreigners.

But that is the internet’s trap.

Research on online outrage has found that only a tiny fraction of internet users take part in these pile-ons, and that repeated posts by this small minority make the group appear far larger than it really is.

In other words, an online comments section is not a national referendum.

If a small number of people keep hammering the post button, they can fill an entire screen with a minority opinion.

Even if 100 people each think once, “I suppose it’s fine,” one person who writes “This is absolutely unacceptable” 100 times can make the two sides look evenly matched on the screen.

It is a rather crude form of democracy, but it makes for a perfectly functional comments section.

With that thought in mind, I looked through the news feed and saw, close by, a story about a Japanese Major League Baseball player helping the Dodgers win.

That prompted a slightly mean-spirited question.

What do the people who had just written “Foreigners should go back to their own countries” think about Japanese people succeeding overseas?

Would they write, “Japanese people shouldn’t go to America and cause trouble. Come back to Japan”?

Probably not.

They would be more likely to celebrate: “Japanese people are amazing,” or “I’m proud of Japanese people succeeding on the world stage.”

When foreigners come to Japan: “Go back to your own country.”

When a Japanese person goes abroad and succeeds: “The pride of Japan.”

What a convenient border. Apparently, it can be opened and closed to suit one’s mood.

This experience also made me think of something else.

Perhaps one day this blog, too, will be flooded with harsh comments.

If that happens, I do not need to think, “If this many people are criticizing me, perhaps I am the one who is wrong.”

If the criticism has substance, I will read it. If someone points out an error, I will correct it. But I do not have to mistake the number of insults for the results of an opinion poll.

On the internet, each person is not limited to one vote. A single person can post ten times or a hundred times.

So I will continue quietly writing about whatever I find interesting.

The strongest force in an online majority vote is not the majority. It is the person with the most time on their hands to keep posting.