In late 2021, a social media disinformation campaign targeting the Swedish social services grew rapidly. The campaign centered on the Swedish Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions) Act (LVU), which allows social services to remove minors from their homes and place them in foster care or family homes.The campaign falsely accused social services of sinister actions, such as kidnapping children—particularly those from Muslim backgrounds—for purposes like sex trafficking, organ harvesting, and forced assimilation. According to the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency (MPF), this represents the most serious disinformation campaign Sweden has ever faced.

This study investigates how the LVU disinformation campaign was handled and responded to by Swedish media organizations and social services authorities. We present the results from a qualitative semi-structured interview study, gathering data from key actors in Swedish authorities (including representatives of social services and government agencies for crisis management) and representatives of Swedish media houses that played a crucial role in countering the campaign.

Can we increase students’ grasp and integration of research methods in political science, and do so in a fun way? We believe the answer is yes. In this article, we introduce the workshop-based narrative framework “The Tale of Folke Folkesson,” where students role-play as the methods expert group Linnaeus Opinion Laboratory (LOL). Through an interactive engagement with the story, students are exposed to the combined utility of various qualitative and quantitative techniques such as content analysis, survey research, experiments, and interviews. This methodological exercise enables students to recognize not only the individual strengths and weaknesses of each method, but also how one method can offset the limitations and/or amplify the benefits of another. Importantly for student learning, it does so in a fun and engaging way. Beyond introducing the narrative framework, we describe how educators can adapt the “Tale of Folke Folkesson” to meet their specific educational needs.

Claims of election fraud have appeared in connection with a number of national elections in recent years, even in countries that have generally been considered as democratic role models. The spread of disinformation regarding elections can lead to an erosion of trust for the process of electing democratic leaders, and can also be indicative of declining trust in the entire political system and its institutions, posing a challenge for a cohesive, democratic society(Berlinski et al., 2023).

The Nordic countries are not exempt from seeing a claims of election fraud and other types of disinformation proliferate in connection with elections appear in recent years (see e.g.Akerbæk & Skiphamn, 2021; Kaati & Shrestha, 2023; Runge, 2019). Yet in the context of disinformation about elections, even specifically claims of fraud, the issue in the Nordics pales in comparison to that of in other countries. In the U.S. for example, accusations of election misconduct are not new (Filindra et. al., 2023), but erupted most dramatically after the 2020 election. The highly publicized events of January 6th, 2021 made it clear that a large number of individuals believed very strongly in a conspiracy having taken place that had caused former President Donald Trump to lose the election.

Based upon developments in recent years, experiences in the Nordics and the U.S. in the context of online narratives of election fraud thus seem like polar opposites. However, online narratives and conspiracies proliferate online without regard for national borders. Extreme platforms where such conspiracies are spread are frequented by different kinds of users from different parts of the world, and can even end up appearing in far more mainstream settings (e.g. Åkerlund, 2021). This paper aims to examine the phenomenon of a form of conspiracy contamination across national borders, where an online narrative regarding elections beingrigged spreads from one national context to a wholly different one. The case under examination is Sweden and the study comprises the last two national elections, i.e., 2018 and 2022, in order to see any kind of effect of the U.S. conspiracy narrative regarding the election on Swedish online discussions. The platforms that will be examined are Flashback and 4chan.

Covert online operations aiming to affect another country’s election and overall political stability constitute a serious threat to liberal democracies. Sweden and other Nordic countries have fared relatively well in this regard, yet research shows how mere exposure to different types of accusations of elections being rigged can have negative effects on voters’ faith in democratic norms (Albertson & Guiler, 2020). The study highlights the importance of domestic discussions being open to foreign influence, even though no efforts of organized election interference are carried out.

In late 2021, a social media campaign about the Swedish social services started to grow rapidly. The claims centre upon social services’ use of the law on the Swedish Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions) Act (LVU). This is a law which allows social services to remove minors from their homes and place them in either foster care or in a family home. The current study aims at looking at the latest crisis with the social services and examine if the discourses constructed in the tweets and if there are other actors who contribute to the escalation abusing the situation of immigrants in Sweden. 

 Multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) is the main method used to analyze the tweets. However, we have mapped the total population quantitatively to see the tweets language as well as mapping the location and keywords used in the tweets.

The analysis reveal a gap between decision makers, social services authorities, and immigrants. What is communicated is the violent actions that the social services perform towards the parents without any clear information about what is the process to take a child away from the family and what happens to that child. Sweden is constructed as a dystopia for immigrants when it comes to social services. They feel they are oppressed and discriminated.