After news about Nihon Hidankyo winning Nobel Peace Prize and invasion of Gaza, X posts containing “Hiroshima” surge over past year
Aug. 7, 2025
by Yoko Yamamoto, Staff Writer
When was the word Hiroshima posted in English on social media? The Chugoku Shimbun reviewed posts on X (formerly Twitter) containing the word “Hiroshima” up to August 5 over the past year. We found that the number of posts increased in connection with news about the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize and the Israeli military’s attack on the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. The most widely shared post read “This isn’t Hiroshima. It’s Gaza,” accompanied by an aerial photo showing a huge explosion and smoke.
We extracted posts that were closely related to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by searching for words such as “August 6” or “hibakusha” in combination with “Hiroshima,” using the social media analytics tool, Meltwater. In total, there were about 720,000 posts, averaging roughly 2,000 per day.
There were three occasions when the number of posts exceeded 20,000, ten times the daily average, excluding August 6 of last year. On March 24, 2025, posts about the Israeli military’s attack on Gaza stood out. One post pointing the scale of the attack, which read, “Israel dropped a bomb equivalent to six atomic bombs on Gaza” was reposted, and rebuttals to it also increased in number.
On October 12, 2024, after the announcement that Nihon Hidankyo had won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, related posts surged on social media. However, the post that drew the most attention was one claiming that the amount of explosive material dropped on Gaza surpassed that of the atomic bomb, citing the statement by Toshiyuki Mimaki, chair of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hiroshima Hidankyo): “Gaza coincides with Japan 80 years ago.”
On August 14, during a conversation before his election between U.S. President Donald Trumpand businessman E lon Musk, posts criticizing major U.S. media outlets as “fake news,” while mentioning Hiroshima and Nagasaki, increased in number.
(Originally published on August 7, 2025)
When was the word Hiroshima posted in English on social media? The Chugoku Shimbun reviewed posts on X (formerly Twitter) containing the word “Hiroshima” up to August 5 over the past year. We found that the number of posts increased in connection with news about the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize and the Israeli military’s attack on the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. The most widely shared post read “This isn’t Hiroshima. It’s Gaza,” accompanied by an aerial photo showing a huge explosion and smoke.
We extracted posts that were closely related to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by searching for words such as “August 6” or “hibakusha” in combination with “Hiroshima,” using the social media analytics tool, Meltwater. In total, there were about 720,000 posts, averaging roughly 2,000 per day.
There were three occasions when the number of posts exceeded 20,000, ten times the daily average, excluding August 6 of last year. On March 24, 2025, posts about the Israeli military’s attack on Gaza stood out. One post pointing the scale of the attack, which read, “Israel dropped a bomb equivalent to six atomic bombs on Gaza” was reposted, and rebuttals to it also increased in number.
On October 12, 2024, after the announcement that Nihon Hidankyo had won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, related posts surged on social media. However, the post that drew the most attention was one claiming that the amount of explosive material dropped on Gaza surpassed that of the atomic bomb, citing the statement by Toshiyuki Mimaki, chair of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hiroshima Hidankyo): “Gaza coincides with Japan 80 years ago.”
On August 14, during a conversation before his election between U.S. President Donald Trumpand businessman E lon Musk, posts criticizing major U.S. media outlets as “fake news,” while mentioning Hiroshima and Nagasaki, increased in number.
(Originally published on August 7, 2025)
