A state-funded AI bot network in Sweden used around 1,200 accounts on X to amplify political divisions during 2025 and 2026, according to a new report by the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency (Myndigheten för psykologiskt försvar, MPF). The network, known as Holiday, produced more than 50,000 posts, comments and shares before its accounts were removed from the platform during the summer of 2026.
According to MPF’s investigation, the network was partly driven by artificial intelligence and operated against Sweden as well as several other countries. The agency assesses that an unidentified state actor purchased the network from a company in East Asia.
The AI bot network in Sweden promoted opposing views
The Holiday accounts mainly engaged with political proposals and issues already being widely discussed on X. Rather than consistently promoting one political position, however, different parts of the network often pushed opposing messages on the same issue.
Some accounts expressed strongly positive views while others took strongly negative positions. MPF says this behaviour was designed to reinforce polarisation and also involved interactions with genuine users on the platform.
Examples identified by the agency included messages calling for immigrants to leave Sweden and for public service broadcasting to be abolished. Other accounts belonging to the same network circulated opposing positions.
This pattern is significant because the objective of foreign information influence does not necessarily have to be convincing people of a particular argument. MPF defines malign information influence as activity by foreign actors intended to harm Swedish society or influence people’s perceptions, decisions or behaviour. Its 2025 assessment noted that attempts to create conflict and deepen existing divisions are themselves recurring objectives.
Accounts were reused across different campaigns
The network was given the working name Holiday because some accounts also posted ordinary-looking content about subjects such as football and holidays, apparently to make them appear more like genuine users.
SVT reported that accounts carrying common Swedish names such as Peter, Markus and Eva had previously operated under different names and posted in other languages.
Some had previously circulated messages targeting audiences in Taiwan, suggesting that the same infrastructure may have been reused for different influence campaigns.
The Holiday network was primarily active during autumn 2025 and spring 2026. MPF says it became larger and more sophisticated over time.
Swedish authorities traced and shut down Holiday
The first accounts were detected by Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, after it took part in an exercise led by MPF to improve authorities’ ability to identify malign information influence.
MPF subsequently established that the accounts belonged to a much larger network. Cooperation between MPF and the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (Post- och telestyrelsen, PTS) led the authorities to alert X.
The platform eventually suspended all the accounts during summer 2026 after determining that they violated its rules, according to MPF.
The report also examines the broader emergence of disinformation as a service, including markets where operators can purchase artificial social-media engagement, and the growing use of AI to operate or reinforce bot networks.
MPF does not link the operation directly to Sweden’s election
The findings were published less than two weeks before Sweden’s parliamentary, regional and municipal elections on 13 September 2026, while early voting is already under way.
MPF does not, however, consider Holiday to have been directly connected to the election campaign. Most of the network’s activity occurred in autumn 2025 and spring 2026, before it was dismantled.
Karin Lönnheden, Head of Operations at MPF, told SVT that the timing nevertheless made public awareness particularly important.
The distinction reflects MPF’s wider assessment ahead of the election. The agency has warned that generative AI has lowered the technical barriers to foreign information influence and that actors can use contradictory narratives, automated accounts and synthetic content to make particular opinions appear more widespread than they actually are.
Swedish authorities have therefore made resistance to foreign information influence part of their preparations for the election. The Swedish Election Authority confirms that voting will take place on 13 September, with early voting available from 26 August.
The Holiday case provides a concrete example of how such operations can work at scale. Its defining feature was not the promotion of one coherent political agenda, but the automated amplification of disagreement itself, showing how polarisation can become the objective of an influence operation rather than simply its consequence.
