REVEALED: Sweden Democrats’ secret social media ‘troll factory’

21 comments

1. Shut ’em down.

2. >A Swedish reporter went undercover for a whole year to confirm the existence of a far-right troll factory, run by the Sweden Democrats to spread content of benefit to the party and degrade its political opponents.

   >In the Kalla Fakta programme for broadcaster TV4, a reporter spent five months working undercover for the Sweden Democrats, first on the YouTube channel Riks, previously owned by the party, and later for the party’s communications team.

   >”I was undercover for a whole year, five months of which I was working [for the party],” Kalla Fakta’s reporter Daniel Andersson told The Local. “Two of them I was on Riks, the YouTube channel, and three of them I was in the communications department.”

   >During this period, Andersson wore a hidden camera to show how the YouTube channel, which the party claims is independent, is in fact closely linked with the party.

   >Andersson said he found out about the troll factory just before moving over to the communications department.

   >”They are in the same office building, Riks rents their office from the Sweden Democrats, so during lunch the departments often met, ate lunch together and talked a lot about it. That’s where I overheard secretive talks about anonymous accounts on social media, and they didn’t want to say what their name was or why they had them.”

   >The Sweden Democrats are also Riks’ largest source of financing, with daily meetings taking place between the channel’s owner, Jacob Hagnell, and Sweden Democrat head of communications Joakim Wallerstein.

   >Kalla Fakta’s report revealed that the party’s communications wing has been tasked with managing a large number of anonymous social media accounts, referred to within the party as a “troll factory”, an organised group of fake accounts with the aim of influencing public opinion and debate by spreading pro-Sweden Democrat content.

   >”We’re going to talk a lot more about how they operate in the next episode, in a week,” Andersson said. “But what we saw very early was that it was very, very systematic, it’s organised. And the purpose is to create a huge load of posts on different social media to create an illusion of the fact that the Sweden Democrats and their image of the world and of Sweden is larger than it is.”

   >”The boss is Joakim Wallerstein, the communications chief of the Sweden Democrats. He’s also the mastermind behind this – we also identified Riks as a part of it, where he is creating a conservative ecosystem, troll factory, to manipulate people’s views of the world,” he added.

   >Back in 2022, the Sweden Democrats were accused of running a “troll factory” by left-wing newspaper Dagens ETC. At the time, the party rejected the accusations, calling ETC’s article “unserious and obvious activism” in an email to SVT, while admitting that a group called Battlefield, responsible for moderating the party’s comments boxes on social media, did exist at one point.

   >In the new Kalla Fakta programme and in another interview with Dagens ETC, Wallerstein admits that these anonymous accounts exist, although he rejects the term “troll factory”.

   >”I don’t think I’ve been running so called troll sites, for the simple reason that I haven’t been spreading false information,” he told Kalla Fakta.

   >Andersson believes this is nothing more than damage control from the party.

   >”He doesn’t want to acknowledge that it is a troll factory. He doesn’t see a problem with the fact that they are anonymous, or the fact that the connection to the party is hidden,” Andersson said.

3. disgusting

4. So basically a reporter went undercover for a year and the results is that he established that 23 small anonymous accounts on twitter and tiktok were linked to sweden democrats communications team. This is a nothingburger.

5. >And the purpose is to create a huge load of posts on different social media to create an illusion of the fact that the Sweden Democrats and their image of the world and of Sweden is larger than it is.”

   Well, the kremlin gremlin has shown how wildly successful that can be.Makes sense that other less savoury actors would copy the recipe.

6. This is part of a worldwide effort to undermine democracy. Russians, chinese, iranians, north koreans work around the clock to spread bullshit

   Beware

7. We desperately need regulation of social media. It’s amazing that none of this is illegal.

8. [removed]

9. Jimmie, Donnie, Orbie and Vladdie. Sounds like a great band, but I don’t want to hear their music.

10. Do people seriously think that there is an elected democratic party out there in the world who doesn’t try to lure the public for personal gain in order to influx their votes? Be it through trolling or a propaganda means?

    People, don’t be naive, please.. 

    Still, good stuff like this gets out! Shame though that not every political party slip up like this and reveal their inner process.

11. [deleted]

12. Never trust a far right party named after the nordic countyr its in, in Denmark we have had the Denmark Democrats gain 16 seats despite their leader previously having been on trial for human right violations.

13. Dear “Democrats”, if you’re taking cues from the Russian/Hungarian/Chinese playbook, you’re no better than us. You deserve a report and a sternly worded letter from the Commission for this.

14. Trolls in Sweden, who would have guessed

15. Oh dear friends from Sweden, we have achieved excellence internationally; feel free to contact us to further your training. 🙂

16. Today, the party leader released a speech blaming the scandal on a “domestic influence operation constructed by the media”. IE, [lügenpresse/lying press](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying_press) is trying to undermine his party…

    Fitting as the party was founded by Nazis/fascists and the current leader was a member back then.

17. Just a reminder you can find articles from 2008 and 2009 about “savvy” Obama staffers running campaigns on social media as the new “young” paradigm. They are a funny, ominous, read these days.

18. Really don’t see a problem with this. A few accounts linked to SD but not disclosed? What’s the big deal.

19. This sort of shenanigans has already been happening for quite a while on Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp for Indian politics, but on a much larger scale with both big accounts and individual morons involved. India’s ruling party (the Bharatiya Janata Party, literally “Indian People’s Party”) has an official “IT Cell” that works to spread campaign messaging on social media but also sends a lot of fake news. And it’s more annoying when they also take legitimate issues like Islamic extremism and delegitimise actions against those issues with their misinformation.

    They have also been actively insulting many of India’s best statesmen like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru (first prime minister of India) and then acting enraged when their opposition makes a dumb but true observation that PM Modi has the same surname as two of India’s most wanted financial fugitives.

    To give a general idea of how horrible hypernationalistic Indians (who are the BJP’s core supporters) in general on social media can be, they once resorted to rape and death threats targeted at the families (especially the wives and kids) of the Australian Cricket Team after India lost against Australia in last year’s cricket world cup. And I’m saying this as an Indian who hates how most Indians behave on social media and in public.

20. Article with paywall

21. Mandatory personhood verification and authorization for all social media accounts on services over a certain threshold of users. Good idea until you realize it’s too good to not having been implemented so far meaning that pretty much all governments everywhere an in on this game of pushing their respective agendas via mass social media (dis)information campaigns.