TOKYO: An emotional dispute between Japan’s government and the defiant southern island of Okinawa went to court on Wednesday, as Tokyo tries to build a new US military base there despite local opposition.
A lawsuit filed by the central government last month aims to force Okinawan governor Takeshi Onaga to let construction go ahead for the facility. It is meant to replace an existing air base located in a crowded urban area of Okinawa and widely seen as a potential danger to nearby residents.
Japan and the United States have been struggling for nearly 20 years to move the base to a remote part of the island. But they have been stymied by local officials, who say Okinawa bears too heavy a burden in supporting the decades-long security treaty between the two countries.
Okinawa, which is less than one percent of Japan’s total land area, is home to some 75 percent of US military bases in Japan and more than half of the 47,000 American military personnel stationed in the country.
Onaga on Wednesday urged the court in the prefectural capital of Naha to dismiss the case, arguing that the rest of Japan must share the burden of hosting US military facilities.
“Okinawa has never voluntarily provided property (for US bases),” Onaga told the court, according to multiple media reports. “The central government is attempting to force through construction. That’s no different from the time under US military occupation.”
Tokyo, however, stuck to its position. “It is extremely important that we remove the present danger” associated with the existing base, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular briefing in Tokyo.
“The central government is moving ahead with the construction work.”
Okinawa was the scene of a bloody battle between American and Japanese troops in 1945, with the United States subsequently occupying the island for 27 years before handing it back to Japan.
Okinawans have long complained about noise, accidents and crimes committed by US service members both before and after the island’s reversion to Japan in 1972.
Tokyo and Washington first proposed moving the Marine Corps Futenma air base in 1996.
But local residents have insisted Futenma should be closed and a replacement built elsewhere in another part of Japan or overseas.
Japan trial starts over American base move on Okinawa
Japan trial starts over American base move on Okinawa
Zuckerberg says Meta no longer designs apps to maximize screentime
- Meta Platforms CEO faces questioned at a landmark trial over youth social media addiction
- It was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users
LOS ANGELES: Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back in court on Wednesday against a lawyer’s suggestion that he had misled Congress about the design of its social media platforms, as a landmark trial over youth social media addiction continues.
Zuckerberg was questioned on his statements to Congress in 2024, at a hearing where he said the company did not give its teams the goal of maximizing time spent on its apps.
Mark Lanier, a lawyer for a woman who accuses Meta of harming her mental health when she was a child, showed jurors emails from 2014 and 2015 in which Zuckerberg laid out aims to increase time spent on the app by double-digit percentage points. Zuckerberg said that while Meta previously had goals related to the amount of time users spent on the app, it has since changed its approach.
“If you are trying to say my testimony was not accurate, I strongly disagree with that,” Zuckerberg said.
The appearance was the billionaire Facebook founder’s first time testifying in court on Instagram’s effect on the mental health of young users.
While Zuckerberg has previously testified on the subject before Congress, the stakes are higher at the jury trial in Los Angeles, California. Meta may have to pay damages if it loses the case, and the verdict could erode Big Tech’s longstanding legal defense against claims of user harm.
The lawsuit and others like it are part of a global backlash against social media platforms over children’s mental health.
Australia has prohibited access to social media platforms for users under age 16, and other countries including Spain are considering similar curbs. In the US, Florida has prohibited companies from allowing users under age 14. Tech industry trade groups are challenging the law in court.
The case involves a California woman who started using Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube as a child. She alleges the companies sought to profit by hooking kids on their services despite knowing social media could harm their mental health. She alleges the apps fueled her depression and suicidal thoughts and is seeking to hold the companies liable.
Meta and Google have denied the allegations, and pointed to their work to add features that keep users safe. Meta has often pointed to a National Academies of Sciences finding that research does not show social media changes kids’ mental health.
The lawsuit serves as a test case for similar claims in a larger group of cases against Meta, Alphabet’s Google, Snap and TikTok. Families, school districts and states have filed thousands of lawsuits in the US accusing the companies of fueling a youth mental health crisis. Over the years, investigative reporting has unearthed internal Meta documents showing the company was aware of potential harm.
Meta researchers found that teens who report that Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more “eating disorder adjacent content” than those who did not, Reuters reported in October.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, testified last week that he was unaware of a recent Meta study showing no link between parental supervision and teens’ attentiveness to their own social media use. Teens with difficult life circumstances more often said they used Instagram habitually or unintentionally, according to the document shown at trial.
Meta’s lawyer told jurors at the trial that the woman’s health records show her issues stem from a troubled childhood, and that social media was a creative outlet for her.
