The war of information and the current scandal in Swedish politics

 Albert Einstein once famously said that he was not sure how the third world war will be fought, but that he was sure that the fourth would be fought with sticks and stones. Whilst this was said during an era of a global nuclear arms race, it do enables a critical discussion on how technology always will shape the the forms of war humanity will fight. With the rise of a globally connected world, the warfare have transformed into the digital platforms, and perhaps a striking example of this is a current scandal in Swedish politics. 

For the past weeks it has been discussed how an investigative tv-documentary showed that the right wing populist party the Sweden-democrats have created several accounts on social media where they through memes tries to affect political discourse. This has been done anonously and is a practice which many countries employ in cyber-warfare to de-stabilize their competitors. Whilst this development is remarkable in itself it also shows an important shift in right-wing utilization of social media. 

There have been numerous studies that have showed that social media have played a crucial role in Swedish politics for enabling political action and mobilization. In particular it has been described how the form of alternative media is much more consumed by swedes than in comparible countries. Other studies have suggested that this connection not only frame reality in a certain way, but also help establish a new political language were words from these forums sometimes establish themselves in mainstream discourse. 

This is basically old news but what is interesting is the echo-system such media platforms facilitates. In this regard it can be said that virtual communities (which communicate with each-other online, share a common cause and language) have become of increased importance in politics. But these virtual communities however have one important dis-advantage: they do have tendency to reach a limit of growth. By this I mean that once they catched all of their rather obvious supporters, they have a hardtime communicating the message beyond their own platforms. And this is where the shift in political eco-system comes in. 

By using anonymous accounts that is not obviously linked to such platforms, political movements or parties, the message from this neo-right communities can spread into mainstream politics. It is easy to share a meme and if it does not explicity come from a clear source, it lessens the social stigma of sharing such content. Thereby, there exists a possibility to spread information beyond the own group of political similar-minded. 

Given that social media follows it own logics and algorithms, which researcher and journalist does not have insight to, it becomes hard to trace such events. And if these events are co-ordinated, it becomes possible to change the entire political agenda. In Sweden the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, is often criticized for being opinion-driving even though less than ten percent of the population utilize it frequently. With the use of fake accounts, co-ordinated by someone that have the resources, it thus becomes possible to first create fake news and then circumnavigate them into the political discourse. Thereby, the results from the documentary shows a significant change in right-wing strategies, from utilizing their platforms to transform their statements into mainstream. 

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