I recently saw in the news that the chairman of a famous sporting-goods retailer was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a woman he met through an app and forcibly taking her money and valuables. Are incidents like this common when meeting people through apps? I have no experience with apps at all, so I’m not sure—was it only reported because he’s a well-known person?

Maezawa from the President’s Office will answer this one as well. At first, the news reports said it involved an app, but later reports described it as a venue or a dating café, so it’s hard to tell which version is accurate. The Asahi Shimbun Digital article apparently says: “After meeting a woman through a ‘dating café’ and asking her to engage in sexual activity at a hotel, he was refused, and the situation is believed to have turned into a dispute.” When someone is in a position of authority, there’s also the possibility that it was a honey trap intended to force them out of that position, so it’s difficult to know what really happened. I can’t help thinking that none of this might have happened if he had joined Universe, though...

I’m Kazu, a male member. When you search the articles, Yomiuri, Asahi, NHK, and TBS describe it as a dating café, while Sankei calls it social media. If Sankei’s description is accurate, it could be an app, but it doesn’t seem to be one. It’s a good habit to check multiple articles when following the news. Regardless of whether an app is involved, two strangers entering a private room to satisfy their desires is bound to lead to trouble fairly often. Even when something does happen, people probably don’t report it to the police because it was a questionable kind of encounter. So I think the incidents that become public are only a small fraction of the total. Even if the police get involved, it probably won’t be widely reported unless the incident has enough news value. In this case, it’s reasonable to assume it became news because one of the people involved was an executive at a well-known company.