Riksdagsvalet — Swedish Election on Facebook

Varpu Rantala
Sep 9, 2018 · 2 min read

The Swedish General Election today has one emerging theme: the growth in support for the Far Right. The trend is alarming in social media data.

The Far Right party Swedish Democrats have received the largest Facebook activity since autumn 2017. The more extreme party, Alternativ för Sverige, was the third largest on Facebook in August, Steve El-Sharawy from EzyInsights found.

Chart: Steve El-Sharawy, EzyInsights

The second largest party was Nya Moderaterna whose most popular content on Facebook was anti-immigration themed. https://www.facebook.com/7719591155/posts/10155591211546156.

Thus, roughly a month before the elections, up to 65% of the Facebook engagement went to anti-immigration and Far Right views.

Towards Election, moderate parties gain more engagement

On the Election Day Social Democrats’ placement has improved. They have taken the second place, and the extreme party Alternativ för Sverige has withdrawn from the top.

Chart: Varpu Rantala, EzyInsights. Data: EzyInsights Intelligence

Provocation Sells

Following and analysing several elections on Facebook we have learned that provocation sells on Facebook. The most provocative voices represent the most extreme values and make better scores than the more moderate ones. The more moderate parties eventually end up doing better in reality. This was the case in e.g. Finnish and French Presidential Elections. In France, the provocative voices of Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and Laura Huhtasaari and Paavo Väyrynen in Finland, did much better on Facebook than in actual election results.

In Sweden, we can see that at least Social Democrats and New Moderates have both grown their support as the Election approaches.

However, the Swedish Far Right situation seems fierce even against this background. The amount of social media activity tells us that people are talking about these issues and that the phenomenon exists. This takes place despite the fact that Facebook removes fake accounts much more eagerly than before and has put an end to several extreme sites.

Varpu Rantala

Written by

Researcher, PhD in Media & Comms based in Helsinki, Finland

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