Vietnamese Facebook page writes false information about election fraud

The false information was published at the beginning of the week on a Facebook page, which is in Swedish but appears to be controlled from Vietnam.

The post that received the most spread has over 700 shares and contains incorrect information that the police found foreign currency and fake passports in a house search in the investigation of the suspected election fraud in Borlänge.

A collage with pictures of the leftist Mohamed Ali, ballot papers and two Swedish police officers can be found in the post. The police have nothing to do with the investigation in Borlänge, the picture comes from an SVT feature about police knocking on suspected drug buyers in Gothenburg, from last year.

Other posts on the page contain more fabricated information about evidence, confessions, dramatic arrests and press conferences.

Anyone who enters the Facebook page will see that it bears clear signs of being a clickbait page.

Many images are clearly AI-generated with often exaggerated and improbable subjects. Although they allegedly show events in Sweden, Vietnamese or English text is visible in the background of some of the images.

In addition to the investigation in Borlänge and the leftist Mohammed Ali, the page writes about Swedish artists, actors and royalty who are alleged to have been involved in terrible things or come with big news.

The page has 10,000 followers, but they are not real accounts. The majority of followers have the same profile picture.

But when a single post appears in the feed, it is not as easy to perceive the signs. In the comments, it appears that several who were met by the post have believed the content. The tone of the suspected election fraud in Borlänge is fierce with demands for re-election, that Mohamed Ali be expelled and anger against media that are believed to be covering up the news.

Other users have also copied or quoted the text, without spreading or linking to the basic post. An X account with around just under 5,000 followers is one of those who spread the information in their own channels. Another similar Vietnamese Swedish-language site has also shared the information, along with a number of private accounts.

On Friday, the original post about Borlänge was marked as misinformation on Facebook after the fact-checking site Källkritikbyrån wrote about the spread.

The investigation in Borlänge concerns Mohamed Abdukardir Ali's personal election campaign for the Riksdag. No person has yet been charged with a crime in that case. In an internal review, Borlänge municipality has found no evidence of systematic election fraud in Borlänge's premises.