Tag "Sweden"
By Christina la Cour, for DisinfoPortal Last September, the Swedish people went to the polls to elect a new government. Before the election, disinformation campaigns had been observed i.e. in Ukraine, the United States, and France in the lead-up to elections. For this reason, Sweden decided to better equip itself to counter disinformation campaigns and foreign influence operations. In January 2018, the Swedish government upgraded its efforts to combat disinformation…
By Martin Kragh Plenty has already been written on the anticipations of outside (read: Russian) interference in the 2018 Swedish parliamentary election. There were no major disturbances, which in my opinion was not a surprise. However, a few fake documents that I recently discovered shed interesting light on a perhaps botched campaign to smear the Swedish election process, a campaign which involved the implication of the Sweden Democrats in a Russian intelligence operation. It remains unclear who was behind…
By Chloe Colliver, Peter Pomerantsev, Anne Applebaum, Jonathan Birdwell, for ISD October 2018 This report presents the findings of a project that investigated foreign attempts to influence the 2018 Swedish elections online. The project revealed the relative isolation of the Swedish far-right online, with few internationally coordinated efforts identified in the Swedish election information ecosystem. Online Scandinavian far-right networks made some attempts to seed disinformation and hate campaigns in Sweden…
By RIB-Meny The handbook aims to assist and support communication specialists in public administration to identify, analyse and counter information influence activities in order to mitigate their impact on society. A central principle for all activities described in this handbook is that they always comply with Swedish laws and principles on freedom of expression and freedom of the press, on which our democracy is founded. This publication is also available…
By EU vs Disinfo Since Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 – an operation where disinformation, deception and confusion played a major role – Swedish authorities have stepped up their work to protect Sweden from similar hostile influence operations. The government has adopted a new security strategy, Sweden’s Security Service (Säpo) have briefed all political parties on the issue and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) have gathered representatives of mass…
By EU vs Disinfo Denmark and Sweden will cooperate in the field of hybrid threats, and there will be a strong focus on the problem with fake news and disinformation. This was the message in an op-ed published on Wednesday by the two countries’ defence ministers in the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet under the headline “Russian fake news: a danger to our countries”. “The security situation in our region is deteriorating…
Swedish kids are set to learn programming from their first year of primary school, as the country’s government introduces an improved digital competence aspect to the curriculum designed to make the tech savvy Swedes even better with computers. Sweden has a reputation for being a leading nation in the tech industry, but rather than resting on its laurels, the plan is for kids to be exposed to the nuts and…
By EU vs Disinformation Last week, we described how trolling and personal intimidation towards journalists and commentators is the most prominent form of propaganda in the Nordic countries. The conclusion was confirmed in a story published last Thursday by the Swedish daily Eskilstuna Kuriren. For the first time, Swedish readers could go behind the scenes and learn about how work is done at a Swedish troll factory. – Hi, I’m…
A case of double bluff – this was the conclusion Swedish internet users reached after a Swedish website presenting itself as the next in a series of websites devoted to checking facts and challenging disinformation turned out to be doing the contrary of what it claimed – not checking but reinforcing disinformation. As we have reported, awareness of the disinformation problem is growing both globally, via e.g. the First Draft…
Swedish Institute of International Affairs accuses Russia of using fake news and false documents to influence opinion, Jon Henley wrote for The Guardian. Sweden’s most authoritative foreign policy institute has accused Russia of using fake news, false documents and disinformation as part of a coordinated campaign to influence public opinion and decision-making in the Scandinavian country. The Swedish Institute of International Affairs said in a comprehensive study that Sweden had…
