Monday’s Nikkei wrote that following the inauguration of Defense Minister Kono, the Defense Ministry has intensified its use of social media, including Twitter and Instagram, to convey its messages to a wider audience. The three SDF branches are reportedly competing with each other to obtain more followers on their social media accounts by frequently posting messages and photos depicting their daily training and disaster relief operations at home and abroad. Kono, who accumulated an unusually high number of followers on Twitter as foreign minister by posting candid messages, is reportedly set to continue being active on social media in order to communicate with the public on “hard subjects” such as security policy.