The diagnosis seemed unequivocal: "Sweden is dying," wrote Elon Musk on his social media platform, X, on December 9. He wrote this on a repost of a tweet by Peter Imanuelsen, known as "PeterSweden," a Swedish supremacist influencer whose tweets Musk frequently reposts. "Sweden used to be one of the safest countries in the world. Now it is is not. Malmö is ranked as dangerous as Baghdad," Imanuelsen wrote, referencing "65 no-go zones" and a 2,300% rise in rapes reported over 50 years.
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How a handful of far-right accounts influence Elon Musk's vision of Europe
This outcry was neither isolated nor accidental. As Swedish researcher Mathilda Akerlund wrote, in a study on the political instrumentalization of rape, "international far-right efforts, with the far right in the United States at the forefront, have over time come to cement the idea that Sweden is literally the 'rape capital' of the world."
Painting an exagerratedly bleak picture
