Learn to recognize a salad on the slide

More More than ten years ago, the bourgeois government launched a fact sheet against xenophobia. The idea was to inform about immigration in order to vaccinate against misconceptions. The page listed a number of alleged myths.

The government’s problem was that some legends They weren’t legends. Other points were explainable. It was simply subordination to a political party, more suited to the party’s position than under the flag of the government. The government thought it could draw a clear line and sort between right and wrong. It didn’t go well.

bourgeois government He is not the only one who has tried to navigate the boundaries between politics, truth and information. The newly created Swedish Psychological Defense Agency – whose primary objective is, among other things, to inform the Swedish people of foreign influence campaigns – has now accepted the challenge.

The authority launched the campaign “Don’t be fooled” Which aims to teach citizens how to “recognize false and misleading information”. This looks good. It is in line with the commission’s mission of “developing and strengthening the community’s overall capacity for psychological defence.”

What is this Then one is not deceived as a citizen? Under “The Laughter That Can Hurt,” he warns, for example, of dangerous “memes” that can be “used to shift focus from a particular issue, take control and change the direction of discussion or to support a hidden agenda.” There are, according to the authority, “those who want to lose you focus or mislead you from the facts. Sometimes light content is a red cover or veil on an important issue.”

Sounds like an average political ad. “By presenting real information in an entirely new context and unilaterally focusing on certain parts, for example, a question, event or person can be incorrectly described,” they write under “Learning to Recognize Fakes.” But isn’t this what politicians do when they choose certain problem areas of paramount importance or selectively prioritize facts that inform their arguments? Swedish public interlocutors probably do this more often than Russian magic factories.

Not So that the Psychological Defense Agency refers to any particular party, party or authority in its campaign that citizens should be careful. This could also be a campaign issue.

The information campaign of the power is generally designed so that it can, for example, be used to immunize citizens against the courses of the Social Democrats on the issue of energy. The amount of sheer misinformation used to divert attention from past policy decisions is extensive. The energy minister doesn’t want to feel that shutting down nuclear power played any role, but he does point to the so-called “Putin prices” as an explanation for the rising costs.

instead of To describe what is somewhat vaguely characterizing the processes of foreign influence, the authority must refer to the sources that actually work for the benefit of a foreign power.

If it is Russia (or China?) that is primarily involved in active disinformation campaigns or undue influence, print it out and provide examples of how it works. Which actors get paid and how much information do they publish?

some like that The knowledge may, for some reason, of course need to be kept secret. But the rule of thumb should be that Swedish citizens are aware of foreign influences. It should be possible to advocate for limited and clear information campaigns. Now, instead, it all became a kind of unconscious commentary regarding the internal political debate. It could hardly be a power task to do.

Adam Koijman is a political editor at GP. He writes about both the local and the global – everything from the construction of the city of Gothenburg to the great political changes of our time.