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Netto-uyoku or net uyoku (ネット右翼, lit. 'Internet rightists'), often shortened to neto-uyo (ネトウヨ), is the term used to refer to Japanese netizens who espouse ultranationalist far-right views on social media. Netto-uyoku is evaluated as sharing similarities to Western right-wing populism or the alt-right.[1][2][3][4][5]
Japan's "cyber nationalist phenomenon" can be traced back from the 1990s during the Lost Decades,[6] when significant socioeconomic changes from the bubble asset led to general distrust and decline of national morale within Japanese society.[note 1][7] Nationalism would become more prominent in the early 2000s when North Korea officially admitted to abducting Japanese citizens[8] and the introduction of the Korean wave in Japan.[9] In an attempt to lash out from the constant frustration, social anxiety, and distrust on national coverages from the mainstream media, netizens displaced their xenophobic and ultranationalistic attitudes through online bulletin boards and forums.
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The netto-uyoku have viewpoints that are emboldened via interacting with other people who share the same perspective.
They generally express support for historically revisionist views that portray the former Empire of Japan in a positive light, while maintaining negative sentiments towards countries that have diplomatic tensions with Japan, specifically North Korea, South Korea, China (anti-Chinese sentiment) and sometimes the United States of America. Netto-uyoku express hostility towards the local immigrants and ethnic minorities associated with those countries, and also promote patriotism within Japanese schools by advocating the requirement for students to sing the national anthem before class.
Domestically, the netto-uyoku express criticisms against the left-wing and centre-left parties (Japanese Communist Party and Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan) and the Japanese mainstream media, which they accuse of having a liberal bias.[10]
Japanese critic and writer Tsunehira Furuya describes the netto uyoku as a "new breed of neo-nationalists who interact almost entirely within their own cyber community, shut off from the rest of society". According to Furuya, "the average age of Japan's Internet right-wingers is around 40. Some 75% of them are male", and adds that although active on the web, they lack institutional political representation offline. This leads them to be more active online, in order to back the far-right elements of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, especially those under the administration of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.[11]
The rise of Trumpism among the netto-uyoku community has been observed since September 2020, two months prior to the 2020 United States presidential election.[12] Some Japanese political commentators even theorized that Shinzo Abe's resignation as Prime Minister in September 2020 to be a juncture for netto-uyoku to shift their central figure to Donald Trump as a "political upgrade" in promoting diplomatic policies which embody anti-Chinese sentiment.[13] As such they began spreading Trump's conspiracy theories in an attempt to overturn the 2020 American presidential election.[14]
