How Sweden's Psychological Defense Agency, a part of the Ministry of Defense, is combating online disinformation from foreign adversaries, especially Russia
The country has empowered a government agency to openly combat online disinformation coming from foreign adversaries, and especially the Kremlin. Mastodon: @carl@heath.social . X: @dabeard , @nytimestech , @dfrlab , @jpmarthoz , @kevinrothrock , @nytimestech , @nytimestech , @alexsteffen , and @tomlin64 LinkedIn: Andrea Liebman and Felicia Weston Mastodon: Carl Heath / @carl@heath.social : Great article in the New York Times about the Swedish Agency for Psychological Defence, which I in this context should say I do research and educational development for. — Sweden has tasked its psychological defense authority with openly combating fake news from foreign actors. … X: David Beard / @dabeard : For Sweden, fighting the disinformation poison of Putin is a matter of life and death. It has set up the Psychological Defense Agency to battle the hated Russian dictator. https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimestech : Sweden's Psychological Defense Agency has become the first line of defense for a country facing a sustained information attack from abroad. The agency has now explicitly accused Russia of exploiting recent protests by immigrants and others in Sweden. https://www.nytimes.com/... @dfrlab : In May, @GrahamBrookie joined a public Nobel Prize Summit panel hosted by @SwedeninUSA to discuss combatting, largely Russian, disinformation. Also on stage was Magnus Hjort, Sweden's director general for the Psychological Defense Agency. https://www.nytimes.com/... @jpmarthoz : “The best way to protect a society against disinformation, if you live in a democratic society, is to increase awareness about the threats and your own vulnerabilities among the population, so they make the right decision https://www.nytimes.com/... @EUvsDisinfo @VeraJourova Kevin Rothrock / @kevinrothrock : Sweden Is Not Staying Neutral in Russia's Information War: The country has empowered a government agency to openly combat online disinformation coming from foreign adversaries, and especially the Kremlin. https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimestech : “When it comes to information war,” said Pär Norén, a senior analyst who conducts training sessions for the Psychological Defense Agency, “it is the brain that is the battle space.” https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimestech : Russia has targeted Sweden with a concerted online campaign to undermine its bid to join the NATO alliance. The work of the Psychological Defense Agency could become a model for how democratic governments can fight back, @stevenleemyers reports. https://www.nytimes.com/... Alex Steffen / @alexsteffen : Some people, at least, are treating these Russian corruption and disinformation campaigns as the attacks on democracy they are. https://www.nytimes.com/... Thomas Lindblom / @tomlin64 : “Facing a tsunami of disinformation about the treatment of Muslims, (...)Sweden decided it needed to fight back.” @patrikoksanen @benimmo https://www.nytimes.com/... LinkedIn: Andrea Liebman : Journalism at its best, reporting on the malign information influence campaign targeting Sweden and interviewing the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency … Felicia Weston : https://lnkd.in/... “Facing a tsunami of disinformation about the treatment of Muslims that has in recent months fueled protests from Stockholm to Baghdad, Sweden decided it needed to fight back. …
Context & Ripple Effects
Sweden’s effort sits in a regional record of Russian-linked information operations: reporting tied a 2016 attack on major Swedish news sites to a campaign aimed at destabilizing NATO alliances, while Finland had already built a cross-sector response to misinformation campaigns.
The agency formalizes that defensive posture inside the Ministry of Defense, treating foreign online influence as a national-security issue rather than solely a platform-moderation problem. Later reporting on Russia’s Doppelganger operation underscores why attribution, public communication and institutional coordination matter alongside content removal.
First-order effects
- Sweden gains a named, government-backed focal point for identifying and publicly countering foreign disinformation, especially activity attributed to Russia.
- The Ministry of Defense assumes a more explicit role in information resilience, bringing online influence campaigns closer to Sweden’s security apparatus.
Second-order effects
- Platforms, news organizations and civil-society groups operating in Sweden have a clearer public-sector counterpart for sharing signals and coordinating responses to suspected foreign campaigns.
- Russia-linked operators face a more organized target environment: rapid public rebuttal can reduce the value of narratives that depend on ambiguity and delayed attribution.
Third-order effects
- If adopted more broadly, dedicated psychological-defense institutions could make resilience against information operations a standing function of national security, not an ad hoc response to individual campaigns.
- That shift also raises durable governance questions about how democratic governments distinguish foreign interference from legitimate domestic speech while acting quickly enough to be effective.
The trend: Democratic states are moving from reactive platform-led moderation toward permanent, state-coordinated defenses against foreign information operations.