Trolls, fake news and bots : Attitudes towards privacy and political information on the internet before the Swedish parliamentary election 2018

• The internet is a growing part of the political arena. During the Swedish election 2018, 71 percent of the Swedish population used the internet to access political information. In 2014, less than half of the citizens used the internet for this purpose. While digital media are becoming increasingly important for the democratic discourse, aspects such as fake news, foreign troll factories and bots auto-generating political posts, as well as personal privacy threats, have been put on the global agenda. So also in Sweden. In the light of the Swedish election 2018, computational propaganda emerged as a prominent issue. This study examines the Swedish population’s attitudes towards the dissemination of disinformation, privacy abuse and the influence of various actors on political opinion before the Swedish election 2018. The analysis is based on a representative sample (n=1,006) of the Swedish population, collected through Kantar-Sifo’s web panel one week before the election 2018. The results present 1) people’s interest in politics and their attitude towards different sources of information for participation in the political debate, 2) attitudes towards the influence on public opinion by different actors and whether these actors prevent or disseminate disinformation, and 3) the extent to which people feel that they have the ability and the opportunity to value the truthfulness of the political information that is distributed online. The study aims to contribute to knowledge about attitudes towards privacy and information online, in particular regarding political information on social media.

Nyckelord

Social media

Privacy

Fake news

political communication

disinformation

Swedish election 2018

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)