NORDIS and its Swedish partners Källkritikbyrån and Fojo Media Institute examine how misinformation, AI and election fraud rumours are shaping the Swedish election campaign.
The Swedish election campaign for municipal, regional and national elections is in full swing, marking the beginning of a high season for potential misinformation in Sweden.
NORDIS has spoken to its partners at fact-checking organisation Källkritikbyrån and the Fojo Media Institute at Linnaeus University about the role misinformation has played in the Swedish election campaign so far.
Sweden is an easy target in the information space, because of its reputation as a liberal country. This means both positively, as a perceived successful progressive society and negatively, where it’s claimed to be wrecked by immigrants or too “woke”.
“This is normally used by those who build engagement bait for money or attention, and the same actors have now also been active in the lead-up to the Swedish election. We have seen content farmers use Facebook at scale to spread fake stories about Swedish politicians, debates and controversies that never happened and also celebrity gossip about the leaders of the different parties,” Åsa Larsson, editor-in-chief of NORDIS partner Källkritikbyrån, says.
AI is also playing a role in the election campaign and is used to create a steady stream of stories and also the images. The Swedish fact-checkers haven’t seen many deepfaked videos. There are a few on TikTok that are being spread as jokes, and sometimes sexualized content about female politicians.
Åsa Larsson points out that in the spring, the media came across a few examples of politicians being AI generated into controversial images, such as Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson being edited into an image with Jeffrey Epstein.
“The people who want to heckle politicians now use AI, and it’s important for factcheckers to be level headed and check only things that get traction and are mistaken for real events,” she says.
No significant evidence of Russian interference
Both NORDIS partners Fojo Media Institute and Källkritikbyrån say they have not seen obvious Russian interference that has any reach to speak of in this election campaign.
Given that all fact-checkers receive a stream of fake news tips constantly in the Operation Overload, these emails have recently included Swedish circumstances and examples. Their shapes on platforms such as X do not reach a lot of Swedes, however.
Swedish politicians are also themselves sources of misinformation during the election campaign. Källkritikbyrån and Fojo therefore focus on what misinformation actually gains traction, rather than simply who is behind it.
As has been seen in several elections in recent years, there are also rumours of election fraud on social media.
“Rumours about possible election fraud have not been abundant, but they appear in the anti establishment part of the public. Local party branches of the Sweden Democrats have posted warnings to be on the lookout for election fraud, but also included in those posts erroneous claims regarding the rules of the election sites,” Åsa Larsson says and adds:
“These kinds of rumours are likely to increase close to and after the actual election.”
Alarmingly, these rumors also call for individuals to confront and question election workers in a sort of aggressive vigilante style, a tactic Andreas Önnerfors, researcher at Fojo Media Institute, has branded as a ”micro attack against democratic procedures”.