Cumulative disinformation through citation: Investigating the longitudinal construction of Sweden as the ‘rape capital’ of the world

Sweden has increasingly come into international far right focus, and digital media sites in the United States have proven especially active in spreading mis- and disinformative narratives about the country. Using social network analysis and descriptive statistics, we trace 776 links over a 27 year-period to understand how U.S. far-right media sites construct the idea of Sweden as ‘the rape capital’ of the world. The article makes several contributions as it pertains both to the technological and ideological functions of citing for digital far-right media. We highlight the (lack of) timeliness of sourcing, the role of mainstream sources for repurposing and amplification, and practices of exaggeration and pseudo-legitimisation. Against the backdrop of our findings, we suggest the need for approaching digital far-right media information practices as more complex and subtle than they have previously been conceived, and highlight the necessity to problematise misinformation as a label for misrepresentation in digital far-right media.