Fact Check. The first human meat restaurant opens in Tokyo? – Observer

In November 2017, one of the news programs on the Mexican channel Imagen Televisión broadcast a television piece about the alleged opening of a human meat restaurant in the Japanese capital, Tokyo. “They open the first restaurant where they sell human meat. He’s in Tokyo. It’s called ‘Edible Brother’. I swear it’s called that: ‘Edible Brother”, guarantees the pivot of the news space, Yuriria Sierra.

At the same time as the pivot reads the teleprompter, the piece shows images of meat. “Meat comes from people who sell their bodies to make food. Before they die”, assures Yuriria Sierra, who indicates that the dishes “cost around” 26 thousand Mexican pesos (around 1,400 euros). “Those who have tried it say that the flavor is very similar to pork,” she continues.

This piece, which was the last before the news ended, prompted some comments from Yuriria Sierra, noting that this alleged gastronomic experience “passed”.

(STRONG IMAGES) They open the first restaurant with official human meat @ImagenYuri pic.twitter.com/ZaSqRHLUGg

— Imagen Television (@ImagenTVMex) November 27, 2017

On social media, there are publications echoing this news piece and also the article written in November 2017 in the Latin American newspaper Publimetro, which conveys information practically identical to that of Yuriria Sierra. In that media outlet, it is added that anyone who wants to sell their body for human consumption must sign a contract “before they die”, receiving around 30 thousand euros for this, although the amount depends on the “age of the corpse”. : “The younger you are, the higher the value.”

Furthermore, we read in Publimetro and in publications on social networks, one of the “requirements” for a person to sell their body is that they “submit to special medical treatment, which allows the deterioration of the body to be avoided as much as possible”. Another is that donors “must die of natural causes”.

Now, the information published either in Publimetro or in the Imagen Televisión news piece is identical to that in an article on the La Voz Popular portal — from the price of the meal to the conditions for those who want to sell their bodies. That website published a piece in July 2016, which also reads that that restaurant has become a kind of “pilgrimage area for the curious”, and La Voz Popular says that it was once in “Irmão Edible”, having interviewed people on site.

It turns out that the La Voz Popular portal has a satirical nature and is not a means of social communication. The website states: “The portal ‘La Voz Popular’ is a satirical daily whose sole purpose is entertainment. Its contents are fiction and do not correspond to reality and, if it does, it is a coincidence. All references, names, brands or institutions that appear on the website are used as contextual elements, as in any novel or fictional story. These mentions should not be taken as facts.”

However, due to the size of the rumor, which reached other social media outlets around the world and became viral, the spokesperson for the Japanese embassy in the United States (USA), Thomas Mattingly, even issued a statement denying the existence of this restaurant.

In the statement issued in February 2018 to which AssociatedPress had access, Thomas Mattingly emphasizes that “there is no restaurant in Tokyo that offers human meat on the menu” and that “cannibalism has not been legalized in Japan”. Furthermore, the person responsible recalls that the first time this type of information appeared was in 2016 from a “satirical website”, probably the The Popular Voice.

Conclusion

Although some social media outlets in Latin America published news and made television broadcasts about the opening of the human meat restaurant “Irmão Edible” in Tokyo, that space never existed. The rumor emerged from a news website that claims to be satirical in 2016. Given the scale of the speculation, the Japanese embassy in the USA denied the existence of the restaurant — and clarified that the practice of cannibalism is not allowed in Japan.

Thus, according to the Observer classification system, this content is:

WRONG

In Facebook’s ranking system, this content is:

FALSE: The main content claims are factually inaccurate. Generally, this option corresponds to “false” or “mostly false” ratings on fact-checker websites.