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My guess is that some form of this is fairly common by all countries who have powerful international intelligence apparatus. Doesn’t make it ok or good, and it’

My guess is that some form of this is fairly common by all countries who have powerful international intelligence apparatus. Doesn’t make it ok or good, and it’s great that journalists highlight the issue to raise awareness. But also important that for anyone who thinks this is bad who is from a world power to understand your country likely does something at least adjacent to this.

kmfrk 2y ago
The Sweden Democrats recently were found out to have done this: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/swedish-coalition-undermined-by-far-right-troll-farm-scandal/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/swedish-coali... Made things a bit awkward in the governing coalition. Makes you wonder how this stuff operates at scale and what the infrastructure of it is like.
- petesergeant 2y ago
  > were found out to have done this A political party running a troll farm is not the same as the intelligence apparatus of a state being used to harass journalists.
- hagbard_c 2y ago
  The Sweden Democrats have done the same as e.g. the Social Democrats have been doing for a very long time, it is just that the regular media - which has had its focus on the Sweden Democrats for a very long time now - have thus far ignored this. This leaves the 'alternative' media which does report on such things, e.g. Samnytt [1] has a piece on how SAP (which is the full acronym for this party, it stands for 'Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti' - Sweden's social-democratic workers party, the biggest party in the country and the one which has had sole control over Sweden for most of the last century) has spent more than 5 million Swedish kronor (~$500.000) on their own 'troll factories'. Unfortunately those alternative media are just as biased as the regular media but where this is usually ignored for the latter it is used as an excuse to ignore anything published by the former - very convenient for SAP but not that good for the political discourse in Sweden. [1] https://samnytt.se/socialdemokraterna-har-satsat-over-fem-miljoner-pa-trollfabriker https://samnytt.se/socialdemokraterna-har-satsat-over-fem-mi...
petesergeant 2y ago
I could write shitty articles about the UK all day long and neither me nor my family would ever hear a peep from British Intelligence. Let’s not normalise this.
- janice1999 2y ago
  Let's not pretend the UK state does not abuse its powers to target journalists. Just ask Ernest Moret [1] or Craig Murray [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/21/police-watchdog-investigating-arrest-french-publisher-ernest-moret https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/21/police-watch... [2] https://www.thenational.scot/news/23864847.craig-murray-detained-terror-laws-palestine-protest/ https://www.thenational.scot/news/23864847.craig-murray-deta...
  - ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
    The Moret case is awful but he is a foreign national, and he is an editor and publisher, not simply a journalist. Craig Murray is not simply (or perhaps really) a journalist; his constant tangles with the intelligence establishment have little to do with his writing and very much more to do with his antagonistic relationship with the British state during his former career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray I have a lot of time for how he thinks and what he's achieved but he's a campaigner, not a journalist. The point is reasonable: journalists don't tend to attract individual attention from the intelligence services. Their editors and publishers do, but that is to be expected due to their specific role in publication and is often appropriate; I am quite sure state security apparatus the world over quietly leans on publishers, including in the USA.
axus 2y ago
I'd believe it as an American, but would like to read a similar article for US threats outside the country. Travel ban / watch list is the main one I'm aware of. Haven't heard about intimidation of family members yet. I did pull this one up from a Google search: https://fair.org/home/us-censorship-is-increasingly-official/ https://fair.org/home/us-censorship-is-increasingly-official... More censorship, than intimidation.

kmfrk 2y ago

The Sweden Democrats recently were found out to have done this: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/swedish-coalition-undermined-by-far-right-troll-farm-scandal/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/swedish-coali... Made things a bit awkward in the governing coalition. Makes you wonder how this stuff operates at scale and what the infrastructure of it is like.

petesergeant 2y ago
> were found out to have done this A political party running a troll farm is not the same as the intelligence apparatus of a state being used to harass journalists.
hagbard_c 2y ago
The Sweden Democrats have done the same as e.g. the Social Democrats have been doing for a very long time, it is just that the regular media - which has had its focus on the Sweden Democrats for a very long time now - have thus far ignored this. This leaves the 'alternative' media which does report on such things, e.g. Samnytt [1] has a piece on how SAP (which is the full acronym for this party, it stands for 'Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti' - Sweden's social-democratic workers party, the biggest party in the country and the one which has had sole control over Sweden for most of the last century) has spent more than 5 million Swedish kronor (~$500.000) on their own 'troll factories'. Unfortunately those alternative media are just as biased as the regular media but where this is usually ignored for the latter it is used as an excuse to ignore anything published by the former - very convenient for SAP but not that good for the political discourse in Sweden. [1] https://samnytt.se/socialdemokraterna-har-satsat-over-fem-miljoner-pa-trollfabriker https://samnytt.se/socialdemokraterna-har-satsat-over-fem-mi...

petesergeant 2y ago

I could write shitty articles about the UK all day long and neither me nor my family would ever hear a peep from British Intelligence. Let’s not normalise this.

janice1999 2y ago
Let's not pretend the UK state does not abuse its powers to target journalists. Just ask Ernest Moret [1] or Craig Murray [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/21/police-watchdog-investigating-arrest-french-publisher-ernest-moret https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/21/police-watch... [2] https://www.thenational.scot/news/23864847.craig-murray-detained-terror-laws-palestine-protest/ https://www.thenational.scot/news/23864847.craig-murray-deta...
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  The Moret case is awful but he is a foreign national, and he is an editor and publisher, not simply a journalist. Craig Murray is not simply (or perhaps really) a journalist; his constant tangles with the intelligence establishment have little to do with his writing and very much more to do with his antagonistic relationship with the British state during his former career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray I have a lot of time for how he thinks and what he's achieved but he's a campaigner, not a journalist. The point is reasonable: journalists don't tend to attract individual attention from the intelligence services. Their editors and publishers do, but that is to be expected due to their specific role in publication and is often appropriate; I am quite sure state security apparatus the world over quietly leans on publishers, including in the USA.

axus 2y ago

I'd believe it as an American, but would like to read a similar article for US threats outside the country. Travel ban / watch list is the main one I'm aware of. Haven't heard about intimidation of family members yet. I did pull this one up from a Google search: https://fair.org/home/us-censorship-is-increasingly-official/ https://fair.org/home/us-censorship-is-increasingly-official... More censorship, than intimidation.