About a week ago, an odd post drifted across my feed on X, formerly Twitter. The accompanying photo showed a bottle of cola with peanuts packed tightly at the top, bobbing on the surface.

The Japanese text began, “Good morning, my Japanese friends.” It went on to ask whether people in Japan were familiar with this way to drink cola in the American South.

Apparently, it is called “Farmer’s Coke.”

According to the post, the Southern combination of Coca-Cola and salted peanuts dates back about a century and became popular because farmers could eat and drink it during fieldwork without first washing their hands.

The post drew a raft of responses in Japan. “Couldn’t be better,” one user wrote. “I even tried it with ‘kan chuhai,’” another said, referring to a canned Japanese alcoholic drink typically made with shochu, a Japanese distilled spirit.

At the end of March, X fully rolled out an automatic artificial intelligence translation feature. Posts written in other languages can now spread instantly in Japan.

In posts in late March, X’s senior official announced the new feature and urged users to “post in your language” and “post about your culture & daily life.”

His English-language messages—“The largest cultural exchange in history just dropped” and “Be the next country that pops off”—appeared in Japanese after they were translated automatically.

How will our information space change from here? Since the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk bought X in 2022, the platform has introduced an impression-based monetization system that allows users to earn more as their posts attract more views.

This pay-for-views model has fueled an increase in exclusionary posts and misinformation aimed at stirring viewers’ emotions and driving up view counts. Could automatic translation become another force accelerating this troubling trend?

As I watch wave after wave of posts appear on X, I feel both danger and hope.

Some people read only the translated headline of an article and immediately fire off heated comments. Others, after exchanging messages with people from countries they had assumed they disliked, begin to reconsider those assumptions.

This year marks 20 years since X began service. The peanuts in the Coke I tried had a saltiness and a sweetness layered in an exquisite balance, blending together without a trace of discord.

One can only hope cultural exchanges will continue in that same spirit.

—The Asahi Shimbun, April 12

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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