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full screen A number of anonymous SD accounts mass produce misleading information, reports the TV4 program Cold facts. Archive image. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT
With the help of a number of anonymous accounts on social media, the Sweden Democrats’ communications department runs a campaign against political opponents and cooperating parties under great secrecy.
The accounts spread AI-faked videos and posts in which immigrants are portrayed as dangerous.
A reporter at Kalla fakta has been documenting the work with a hidden camera for nine months, first as an employee at the Youtube channel Riks, then as a communicator at SD’s communications department.
Part 2 of the program “Undercover in the troll factory” shows how employees of the communications department produce and spread content from anonymous accounts on social media. Cold facts have identified 23 accounts on Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook controlled by the employees.
The accounts, which together have over 260,000 followers, published around 1,000 posts in the first three months of the year which together received over 27 million views.
Made with AI
The program states that the connection to SD and the accounts must not be disclosed.
– There are friend pages, but we don’t talk about anything. Ever, says communications manager Joakim Wallerstein in a recording.
The content that is produced, largely so-called memes, humorous posts with images, videos and text, aims, among other things, to portray immigrants as violent and dangerous and to attack political opponents.
In one clip, SD leader Jimmie Åkesson is cut in as the driver of a tank firing shots at Rinkeby square in northwest Stockholm, where a high proportion of people with a foreign background live. In another, the Left Party’s Nooshi Dadgostar is compared to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Several films are also produced with the help of AI, where Social Democrats party leader Magdalena Andersson is seen saying things she has not really said. Films are also being circulated where messages from the Social Democrats are distorted with clipping.
“We can break the whole country. Together we can destroy our Sweden. Vote for the Social Democrats,” says Andersson in a film.
Attacks L and M
Udden is also directed at the cooperation parties in the Tidö Agreement, and Kalla facts shows how content is spread where representatives of the Liberals and Moderates are attacked.
In a recording, you can hear Joakim Wallerstein asking the group to target Alice Teodorescu Måwe, candidate for the Christian Democrats in the EU elections, the same morning she stated in a DN interview that she has nothing in common with SD.
– It would be good if we could go through what kind of crap you can find on Alice. Why we think she’s a broom, says Wallerstein.
SD’s press service has declined to comment on the Cold Facts programme.
FACT check in two parts
TV4’s Kalla fakta examines in two programs how the Sweden Democrats use anonymous accounts on the internet.
Kalla fakta’s reporter has worked for nine months on the YouTube channel Riks and later as a communicator at SD’s communications department.
With the help of a hidden camera, it is revealed how Riks and the party are closely connected, and how employees of the communications department run a large number of anonymous accounts online to denigrate political opponents and spread content that benefits their own party. Internally, the operation is called the “troll factory”, according to the review.
The Social Democrats have reacted strongly and are demanding that Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) investigate whether SD officials placed at the Government Office were involved.
Kristersson himself has said that he takes the information seriously and that parties should “stay away” from contributing to the spread of misinformation.
SD’s communications director Joakim Wallerstein has admitted that they run anonymous accounts but opposes the word troll factory, because according to him they do not spread incorrect information.
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