Build relationships and be vigilant

In February 2025, a false rumour spread that parasites were contaminating municipal drinking water in Östersund. Municipal Chief Executive Anders Wennerberg shares his insights on trust, leadership and swift decisions.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned regarding the spread of rumours about parasites in drinking water, dealt with by the municipality of Östersund in February 2025?

A takeaway from that short but intense period is that I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by highly talented colleagues who understand priorities and keep each other informed about how events are unfolding. Also, it’s tremendously important to have a good relationship with the media and familiarity with dealing with their questions. Their work was invaluable in killing the false rumour. I think it helped that I’m always 100 per cent available to the media and that we try to always be fast and accurate.

It’s also reassuring that we – especially me and our dedicated chief of security – had discussed our approach even before the incident in terms of setting the bar low. Quite simply, we don’t accept threats in any form or rumours that may disrupt society. In such cases, we act fast and hard and make sure that the matter is reported to the right authorities. In this case, it was reported to the police and the Security Service. The County Administrative Board was informed through established contact channels for duty officers.

Can public-sector actors prepare themselves against disinformation, misleading information or propaganda?

You probably can’t prepare for it happening, but you can certainly prepare for dealing with it, should it emerge. Exercises as a preparatory measure are a must. This needn’t be large-scale, well-prepared exercises that take up a lot of time and resources. It may be enough to use the card games prepared by the Psychological Defence Agency or the Swedish Food Agency, for example, with short, quick reflection exercises: What do you do if X or Y happens? They make you think through different scenarios together with your colleagues.

Otherwise, I’m strongly in favour of building relationships. Knowing each other a little makes everything easier. Seeking contact with someone at an authority once a crisis has actually struck can be challenging, but it makes it so much easier if you’ve already met and exchanged phone numbers beforehand.

It’s equally important to have a good relationship with local politicians, so that they feel and – in my case – know that their Municipal Chief Executive has the situation under control and will get in touch if needed.

Is it important for you as a municipality to know who’s behind the incident, whether in Sweden or from abroad?

No – who the sender is doesn’t really matter to how we manage the situation. But, it could clearly affect our continued work and preparedness if it’s a coordinated foreign power or a more local, solitary person.

The Psychological Defence Agency looks at malign information influence from foreign powers; how does this relate to the work of a municipality?

It’s of tremendous interest to us and something we need the Psychological Defence Agency’s help with. We’re simply not accustomed to monitoring it, and don’t have the tools to do so either. As a municipality, our local and national reporting is well in order, but we’re much weaker in terms of international reporting, especially in terms of what goes on outside of fully open forums. We need the Psychological Defence Agency’s help with seeing, analysing and assessing how we can be affected as municipalities. It’s also important to remember that municipalities vary tremendously.

The median municipality has about 15,000 inhabitants. 220 out of Sweden’s 290 municipalities have fewer than 20,000 inhabitants. So, it’s difficult to have a department of skilled individuals focusing on security issues. Municipalities therefore have to help each other, and also work with the central government to benefit from its collective expertise. Close cooperation with the municipalities is therefore crucial, for the Psychological Defence Agency as well as other central-government authorities in the contingencies system.

You’re a Municipal Chief Executive – what do you think is the challenge faced by municipalities in terms of the information environment?

That developments are happening so incredibly fast! We just have to realise and accept that we’ll always be one step behind. Antagonists will always find new ways and means to reach in with malicious information. The only thing we can do is be as prepared as we can and be vigilant about anything that could have a different meaning than first appears. While AI technology is great, it definitely also poses a risk with realistic images, voice cloning and rapidly compiled analyses of strewn facts.

At the same time, it’s incredibly disheartening to have to have to look at things from that angle – to constantly have to think about double meanings and malicious intentions. However, times are what they are right now and we can no longer allow ourselves to be naive. Especially not when working for a municipality that is of particular interest in terms of defence rollout, focus from NATO, high priority in the DCA agreement and right in the middle of Sweden, both north-to-south and west-to-east.