The Swedish Security Service has raised the terror threat level from elevated (3) to high (4) on a five-point scale. As a consequence of this, the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency urges the public to be on the alert for false and misleading information.

Do not share disinformation, do not spread rumours and access verified information from public authorities are simple things that you can do to help protect our society from threats.

Sweden is being subjected to influence activities

The spread of disinformation has increased in society, particularly on social media. The recent burning of religious texts is one of the reasons for this. Some people are provoked by and upset about these acts and express this. Other actors take the opportunity to spread misleading and incorrect messages about Sweden in order to increase conflicts and cause division. This has resulted in demonstrations, violent protests in several countries and calls for violence.

For instance, we see messages falsely claiming that the Swedish state supports desecrations of Islam, and that Sweden as a country uses freedom of expression in order to attack Islam.There is also a narrative being spread that Sweden is hostile to Islam.

What can you do?

Together, we need to protect our open and democratic society, the free formation of opinion and Sweden’s freedom and independence.

Be critical of sources, do not spread rumours and seek verified information from public authorities.

Pay particular attention to information that upsets, scares or generates strong emotions. There may be someone who is trying to influence you.

When encountering information, ask yourself:

• Is the information correct, is this reasonable?
• Can this be checked against other sources?
• Who is the sender and is it a normally credible source that is saying this?
• How old is the information, image or film? Is it still relevant or is old information being recycled?
• Why is this information being spread, is someone benefiting from you seeing something in a particular way?