Swedes Share Largest Amount of 'Fake News' in Europe Ahead of Sunday's Election - Report

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th September, 2018) Swedish social media users are sharing the largest amount of so-called "fake news" stories compared to any other European country ahead of the upcoming general election on Sunday, according to an Oxford University report published on Thursday.

"Swedish social media users are sharing more junk news one for every three URLs being shared with political hashtags the largest proportion of all the European elections we have studied, and most of this junk news is home grown, with eight of the top ten junk news sources being of Swedish origin," the report, titled News and Political Information Consumption in Sweden: Mapping the 2018 Swedish General Election on Twitter, read.

According to the report, the sources of junk news usually published "misleading, deceptive or incorrect information purporting to be real news about politics, economics or culture," and contained different forms of propaganda as well as "ideologically extreme, hyper-partisan or conspiratorial" information.

"The ratio of junk news to professionally produced news was the same as in the US election. However, significantly more junk news was shared in Sweden than in the other European democracies we studied," the report noted.

The Swedish Security Service (Sapo) said on August 30 that the growing number of attempts to meddle in Sweden's internal affairs had been recorded ahead of the vote on Sunday.