If a social media account is spreading Russian disinformation - does sharing content from the account give it legitimacy?
No, says Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Minister for Civil Defence. But at the authority the minister is responsible for, the answer sounds different.
— In any case, you spread something that a foreign power might intend to spread to make us worried, says Mikael Östlund, press officer at the authority.
It was a year ago that Carl-Oskar Bohlin shared a tweet from the American influencer Lauren Southern, known for her far-right advocacy. The original video warned of how AI is used in influence operations, something the minister forwarded to his around 45,000 followers. “The ability and height of the impact operations risk increasing avalanche-like with disruptive technology shifts,” wrote Carl-Oskar Bohlin on X.
Now, an American indictment against two Russian government employees shows that the production company Tenet media, where Lauren Southern is employed, must have been secretly financed by the Russian news agency RT. A total of just over SEK 100 million is said to have been transferred from the Russian state employees to the American company. In turn, influencers would push specific issues—such as questioning support for Ukraine—to their millions of followers. On YouTube alone, the videos have received more than 16 million views.
In light of the American indictment, Carl-Oskar Bohlin has been criticized for not checking his sources better. But the Minister of Civil Defense lets the tweet stay on X.
“For the simple reason that it is difficult to misunderstand.” writes Bohlin to DN.
“One should of course refrain from spreading harmful narratives from foreign powers. However, it is a somewhat strange indictment that my warning about deepfakes and doctored videos would in itself constitute Russian disinformation. With such a threshold, it will be difficult to talk about or warn about the phenomenon at all,” continues the minister.
Carl-Oskar Bohlin is responsible for the agency for psychological defence, MPF. Countering misdirection and misinformation, including rumor spreading and propaganda, is one of the agency’s main missions.
In case you wonder, mr. Bohlin is from the conservative party (Moderaterna).
If you make a comment critizing a specific piece of propaganda, then you have to reference it. Claiming that quoting or referencing something is an “endorsement” of that thing, is complete nonsense.
The situation is different: He uncritically shared a video warning about AI disinformation which itself came from Lauren Southern, a far-right, Russian-financed influencer. I.e. the video he shared was probably unproblematic in itself, but it led people to a problematic account, without any type of warning.
Oh okay, thanks. That makes sense then yeah.
I couldnt read the linked source and wasnt really able to understand it well from the post summary.
Sorry about that - I also found the original Swedish article to be a bit of a confusing mess.
I think, as a public servant and especially a minister supposed to be responsible for curbing misinformation, you have a responsibility for which sources you use. As a public representative, using a source grants it legitimacy. If you later learn that a source you helped promote was run by by a hostile disinformation campaign, it’s clear that you have messed up, and you need to do something to redeem the situation.