After the troll scandal - editor-in-chief leaves S-newspaper

Following the revelations about the Social Democrats’ own so-called troll factories, which posed a threat to democracy when it came to the Sweden Democrats, S-owned AiP Media’s editor-in-chief Jenny Åkervall has announced that she is leaving her position.

Recently, the Social Democrats received criticism for the pages and accounts they operate on social media through the company AiP Media Produktion AB. Some examples of these are the Facebook pages ‘Samtidigt i Sverige’ and ‘Sverige inför verkligheten’ as well as the Instagram account ‘Jävla uland’.

The reason for the criticism is that it has not been clear that it is the Social Democrats behind these and that the party has accused the Sweden Democrats of engaging in ‘troll factories’ for their similar activities.

The reason for editor-in-chief Jenny Åkervall’s departure, according to CEO Daniel Färm, is that she has taken a leave of absence and, according to her, has nothing to do with the recent uproar.

– I requested a leave of absence a long time ago to do something else for ten months, she says.

Since 2018, Jenny Åkervall has held several positions within the Social Democrats in Danderyd and previously worked as a speechwriter for Göran Persson and Mona Sahlin. She took on the role of editor-in-chief at AiP Media in 2023.

Prohibited from advertising

According to Åkervall, the newspaper Aktuellt i Politiken has a completely autonomous editorial team and organization, and it has nothing to do with the rest of the ‘digital offensive’. As editor-in-chief, she was solely responsible for AiP’s online and social media pages.

At the same time, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has prohibited AiP from advertising on their platforms. This is said to have occurred as a consequence of the connections to the Social Democrats becoming known.

AiP Media is now undergoing a transformation and will change from a party newspaper to a general news newspaper, and the new editor-in-chief will not have any political assignments. It will now also be made clearer on the pages and accounts they operate that AiP Media is behind the content.