Sweden Faces Growing Challenge of Disinformation

Sweden’s Nuanced Battle Against Disinformation

In Sweden, disinformation operates in subtle ways that challenge traditional detection methods, according to experts Jessica Giandomenico and Hanna Linderstål from Earhart Business Protection Agency. Unlike countries where false information spreads through easily identifiable campaigns, Sweden faces a more sophisticated challenge where disinformation fragments are embedded within legitimate democratic discourse.

Swedish citizens generally demonstrate strong resilience against obvious falsehoods, largely due to high levels of trust in authorities, scientific institutions, and social systems. The population’s strong educational background and general media literacy has created what many analysts describe as a natural immunity to blatant disinformation.

However, this very trust creates a unique vulnerability. “High levels of social trust can allow disinformation actors to work systematically to build credibility on social media,” note the researchers. These actors establish themselves as trustworthy voices before gradually introducing dubious content into public discourse.

The report identifies a growing trend of inauthentic accounts operating across multiple social media platforms. These accounts carefully cultivate professional personas and networks, particularly on platforms like LinkedIn. A typical pattern involves an account that appears legitimate on one platform while showing clear signs of inauthenticity on others.

“A typical example could be a man energetically discussing national security on LinkedIn and having hundreds of legitimate contacts, despite his professional background being unrelated to security,” explain Giandomenico and Linderstål. “At the same time, a dormant Facebook account with the same name and photo shows a person with only a handful of contacts.”

Another common approach involves accounts that build trust within specific communities by actively participating in discussions about innocuous topics like Tesla cars or yoga. After establishing credibility, these accounts unexpectedly pivot to spreading unrelated opinions or promoting specific narratives. The strategic patience demonstrated by these actors represents a sophisticated evolution in disinformation tactics.

Sweden’s social cohesion, while generally strong, has shown vulnerability when existing societal grievances intersect with disinformation. The report points to a 2022-2023 campaign against Swedish social services as a particularly concerning example. This campaign promoted the false narrative that social services were systematically removing children from Muslim immigrant families.

The fallout from this disinformation campaign continues to affect social workers in Sweden, demonstrating how targeted false narratives can exploit and amplify existing tensions. The incident highlights how even a society with high institutional trust can experience rapid erosion of that trust when disinformation effectively targets genuine social concerns.

What makes the Swedish disinformation landscape particularly challenging to address is that false information rarely appears as distinct narratives driven by clearly identifiable actors. Instead, disinformation exists as fragments integrated within legitimate discourse, making it difficult to isolate and counter without appearing to impinge on democratic expression.

The Swedish case offers important lessons for other democracies facing similar challenges. High social trust and strong educational systems provide valuable protection against obvious disinformation, but they do not guarantee immunity from more sophisticated influence operations that exploit that very trust.

Per Enerud from the Psychological Defence Agency of Sweden, who reviewed the report, underscores the importance of understanding these nuanced dynamics as Sweden continues to strengthen its resilience against information threats in an increasingly complex digital environment.

The Swedish experience demonstrates that combating disinformation requires not only addressing obvious falsehoods but also developing strategies to identify and counter subtle narrative manipulation that leverages societal strengths as potential vectors for influence.